Finding the perfect piece of land for development can be a challenge for property professionals. There are so many factors to consider - the scarcity of available land, the fierce competition, tricky planning rules, infrastructure challenges, and sometimes even pushback from the community. All these hurdles can make the process of site sourcing feel like a marathon, both in terms of time and resource. That's why having the right tools and reliable, robust data is so important.
At LandTech, we're all about making life easier for you. Our mission is to take the stress out of site sourcing, helping property professionals tackle these challenges head-on. While we can't magically create more land or fix planning challenges overnight, we do provide some pretty powerful tools to help you navigate the complex data landscape of site sourcing.
In this blog post, we'll properly introduce you to our Site Sourcing Tool, showcasing its features and data, and our top tips to help you get the most out of this powerful tool within LandInsight.
What is the Site Sourcing Tool?
LandInsight’s Site Sourcing Tool makes finding suitable land a breeze, speeding up the process and making it more efficient. Designed with flexibility in mind, it adapts to various sourcing strategies, allowing users to narrow down opportunities in seconds.
With a range of customisable filters—like parcel size, planning status, and more—it offers precision and ease, saving you time and effort at every step. Instead of sifting through layers of data, you can now effortlessly search across data sets to both source and assess potential development opportunities as you go.
What data is available in the Site Sourcing Tool?
Whether you’re looking for Grey Belt opportunities, PDR conversions or sites with existing planning permission, you’ll have the right data available to narrow your search for the most suitable sites for your approach.
Below is a comprehensive list of all the filters available within the Site Sourcing Tool:
- Parcel Size Ownership type (e.g. company, housing association, private owner)
- Owner name (e.g. Tesco)
- Adopted and Emerging Constraints (e.g. Protected areas, flood risks, Rights of Way, and many more)
- Land Availability Assessments (Negative, neutral and positive)
- Additional Opportunities (e.g. Declassified Green Belt)
- Agricultural Land Classifications
- Amenities (e.g. transport, schools, retail, and more)
- Company Status (e.g. active, in administration, etc.)
- Developed Area (by percentage)
- Site Allocations - Adopted and Emerging (e.g. Community, commercial, mixed use allocations, etc.)
- Grey Belt Preference (by favourability)
- Lease start date
- Lease end date
- Planning Applications
- Property State (e.g., in use, vacant, etc.)
- Regeneration Zones - Adopted and Emerging (e.g. Area Action Plans and Named Regeneration Areas)
- Sites Allocations - Adopted and Emerging
- Tenure (e.g. freehold and leasehold)
- Use Class
We're frequently adding new data sets to LandInsight, so while this list is comprehensive, it's always worth checking to see our latest additions.
Top tips for using the Site Sourcing Tool
There are a variety of ways you can search for and assess the best development opportunities using the Site Sourcing Tool. Below are some of our top tips for using the Site Sourcing Tool in the most effective way.
Saved searches for efficient sourcing
While setting precise search criteria is one of the most powerful aspects of the Site Sourcing Tool, we’d be remiss if we didn’t highlight that you can actually save your favourite criteria to use whenever you’d like.
Set the filters best suit your needs, save the search and you can access this set of search criteria at any time - talk about efficient site sourcing.
Dynamic map search
Not 100% set on a location? No problem. Just turn on the 'Search as I move the map' toggle to generate new results that match your specific search criteria as you navigate to new areas.
Narrow your search before you start
Looking for sites in a very specific location? Before you start using our filters, you can either use our Drawing Tool to highlight a specific area on the map or you can utilise the Radius Tool to pick a point on the map and create a radial search. You can also start your search by selecting specific councils where you'd like to see results.
Once you’ve applied either of these methods, you can simply layer on the right filters and criteria to help you narrow down your search even further.
Export searches for easy collaboration
Once you’ve found results worth exploring further, you can always save individual sites into your Sites Pipeline. But what if you’d like to share your top sites with someone who isn’t a LandInsight user?
Regardless of who you need to collaborate with, you can easily export your results in bulk to a CSV file. The CSV file will include critical details for each site you found interesting, including a link back to the site on LandInsight if you need it.
Ready to streamline your site sourcing?
By streamlining the land sourcing process, LandInsight’s Site Sourcing Tool allows you to shift your focus from manual searches to strategic decision-making. Instead of spending hours combing through data, you can concentrate on evaluating sites, building relationships, and planning successful developments.
It’s a tool designed not just to save time, but to give you a competitive edge in identifying and acting on the best opportunities in the market. Ready to see it in action? Simply request to speak to one of our experts below, so they can show you just how customisable your searches can be.
