Land Between Two Footbridges Fawley Court Marlow Road Fawley Buckinghamshire Data via plota.co.uk

The Environment Agency flood map for planning. Homes in zone 3 must also pass the sequential test. Surface water flooding is a separate map.

Previously an area of outstanding natural beauty, which is still the designation in law. Since 2023 authorities must seek to further its purpose, not merely have regard to it.

Registered parks and gardens, battlefields, world heritage sites and protected wrecks are designated heritage assets: harm needs clear and convincing justification.

The council must give weight to preserving or enhancing the area's character and appearance. Not every council has published its boundaries as open data.

An Article 4 direction withdraws particular permitted development rights, so work that would normally need no application needs one here. Not every council has published its directions.

A designated building, monument, park or conservation area assessed as at risk from neglect, decay or development. Proposals that secure its future are looked on favourably.

Where development of farmland is needed, policy prefers poorer land over the best and most versatile (grades 1, 2 and 3a). Three sources: Natural England's post-1988 field surveys, which are definitive where they exist; the Defra predictive map for England (2025) and the Welsh Government predictive map, modelled from the soil map with 3a and 3b split; and the 1970s provisional map, which planners and other services still show, coarser and with grade 3 undivided. Where the provisional and predicted grades disagree, treat the predicted grade as the current estimate and expect an application to carry its own survey.