Employment Land Review

What is an Employment Land Review?

Employment Land Reviews (ELRs) are prepared to assess the likely demand for, and supply of, land for employment uses. They are used to make assessments of:

• land currently in use for employment purposes
• land currently allocated for employment purposes; and
• land with the potential to be suitable for employment purposes.

The East Riding Employment Land Review 2020 is available to view below:

East Riding Employment Land Review 2020 - Report (pdf 2.4mb)

East Riding Employment Land Review 2020 - Site Assessment Report (pdf 32mb)

Why prepare an Employment Land Review (ELR)?

An important objective of the Local Plan is to deliver an appropriate local balance between competing uses for land, particularly housing and employment.

The Employment Land Review (ELR) is an important source of evidence, which has been prepared to ensure that the plan is based on a good understanding of existing business needs, likely changes in the market, the current employment land position and the potential future supply of employment land.

It will help the council identify how much land is needed for employment development, assess the suitability of sites for employment use, safeguard the best sites in the face of competition from other higher value uses, and help identify those which are no longer suitable for employment development which should be made available for other uses.

What has been considered through the Employment Land Review (ELR)?

Arup were commissioned to undertake an Employment Land Review (ELR) in 2019. This study has considered the following: 

Economic context, including; the number, sizes and types of businesses operating in the area, FEAs, drivers of growth including LEP Strategic Economic Plans and draft Local Industrial Strategy, roles of strategic employment locations such as Humber Bridgehead and Goole, inward investment pipeline of economic developments, cross boundary relationships, and trends in working practices.

Econometric forecasts for the East Riding including; a ‘baseline’ scenario based on long term historic employment trends and assumptions in relation to the UK as a whole, and a ‘higher growth’ scenario incorporating additional employment to the ‘baseline’ scenario based on committed development projects, inward investment pipeline and additional ‘policy on’ growth.

Historic employment land take-up in the East Riding including the amount and type of employment land developed between 2012/13 and 2018/19.

Stakeholder Engagement, including semi-structured interviews with neighbouring authorities and LEPs, a stakeholder workshop with a range of organisations including businesses and agents, and a questionnaire sent out to local businesses.

Commercial property market assessment including recent developments with the East Riding’s key industrial and office sites, floor space availability, values and take-up.

Employment land supply, which assesses the amount, location, suitability, achievability, and deliverability of land available for employment in the East Riding.

Has the Employment Land Review been updated? 

Yes. A partial update, or Demand Update, to the 2020 ELR was commissioned and prepared in 2022 by Ove Arup and Partners Limited (Arup) and Edge Economics Limited.

The Demand Update sought to provide a new data on baseline and a higher growth scenario using the latest available econometric modelling forecasts. As such the Demand Update provides a full update of Section 3 of the 2020 ELR and should therefore be read as a replacement to that section. Other issues originally covered in the 2020 ELR were not revisited.

The primary objective of the update was to recognise the implications of significant changes that have characterised the period since the ELR was  undertaken. These included the implementation of Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic. Economic prospects remain highly uncertain as these matters as still  ongoing. Policy approaches at the national, regional and local level are being reviewed and altered, and new opportunities and threats needed to be considered.

The Demand Update needs to be seen in that context but it represents a more up to date position to inform employment land decisions for the Local Plan Update. The same broad methodology for the 2020 ELR was employed for the Demand Update in terms of establishing employment land figures. Again, two scenarios were presented to establish a range for consideration.

Employment Land Review Demand Update 2022 (pdf 455kb)