Streamlining the Call for Sites Process with GIS: Key Takeaways

Local authorities across the UK are under increasing pressure to deliver local plans efficiently, transparently, and with limited resources. In our recent webinar, we explored how Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can transform the Call for Sites process, helping planning and GIS teams modernise workflows, improve data quality, and accelerate decision-making. 

The Call for Sites stage is a critical foundation of the local plan. It invites landowners and developers to submit potential sites for development, providing essential insight into land availability and shaping future planning strategies. However, as highlighted during the session, this process is often resource-intensive, involving high volumes of submissions, inconsistent data formats, and manual validation. In fact, audience polling during the webinar showed that the majority of authorities still rely heavily on manual processes, with time and resource constraints cited as the biggest challenge. 

A GIS-led approach to Call for Sites 

The webinar demonstrated how adopting a GIS-driven approach can address many of these challenges. By capturing site submissions digitally through a map-based interface, local authorities can standardise data collection, reduce manual effort, and create a single, spatially enabled source of truth. 

NEC’s Call for Sites application enables a fully online, self-service submission process, allowing landowners and developers to easily plot sites, upload data, and complete structured forms. This significantly reduces the burden on planning and GIS teams, eliminating the need to digitise paper submissions or reconcile spreadsheets and emails. 

Once submitted, sites are automatically stored within a GIS environment, ready for analysis. Authorities can then assess each site against key spatial constraints – such as flood risk, green belt designations, and infrastructure proximity – using automated workflows. This ensures a consistent, transparent, and auditable approach to site assessment. 

Real-world success: East Herts Council 

We were joined by East Herts Council, who shared their experience of implementing the solution as part of their 2024 Call for Sites exercise. Their transition to a fully digital portal resulted in the successful submission of over 280 sites, with the vast majority received online. 

The benefits were immediate. The team was able to rapidly generate spatial reports for members, clearly showing site locations and distribution across the district. Data consistency improved through structured submissions, and integration with existing GIS datasets enabled faster and more robust analysis. 

Importantly, the solution has become a core part of their ongoing planning workflow. East Herts is now using the tool daily to support scenario modelling, capacity analysis, and strategic decision-making, while continuing to refine and enhance the process based on real-world insights. 

From submission to insight 

A key highlight of the webinar was a live demonstration showing how the application supports the full lifecycle of Call for Sites, from submission through to reporting and analysis. Automated report generation allows teams to quickly produce both public-facing summaries and detailed constraint analyses, saving significant time compared to traditional manual processes. 

This end-to-end capability not only improves efficiency but also strengthens transparency and defensibility – critical factors when plans are subject to scrutiny from members, inspectors, and the public. 

Watch the webinar and learn more 

If you missed the session or would like to explore the solution in more detail, we invite you to watch the full webinar recording by filling in the form below. 

Join us for the next webinar in the series, Bringing Planning Data to Life with Mapestry™, on Wednesday 24 June at 10am BST. 

To find out how NEC can support your organisation in modernising your Call for Sites process, get in touch with our team for a tailored discussion or demonstration.