Cut Farm Quay Lane Beaumont Clacton On Sea Essex CO16 0BB Data via plota.co.uk

The Environment Agency flood map for planning. Councils use it to decide when a flood risk assessment and the sequential test are needed. It is indicative and does not show whether a particular property will flood.

Compiled from highway authority data, not the legal definitive map. A few authorities have not published, so no path shown is not proof there is none.

Harm to a protected site is only accepted where there is no alternative and an overriding public interest.

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.

Nationally important archaeology protected by the Secretary of State. Work that affects the monument or its setting is rarely permitted.

Sites of special scientific interest are the best wildlife and geological sites in the country. Development likely to harm one is rarely permitted.

Nationally significant infrastructure projects (power stations, electricity lines, pipelines, major roads and railways, harbours, airports and reservoirs) are consented by a Secretary of State under the Planning Act 2008, after an examination by the Planning Inspectorate, rather than by the council. The boundary is the one the Inspectorate consults on and can change as the scheme does. Projects are shown within 2 km of the site.