Site Assessment Matrix
The Site Assessment Matrix (SAM) provides a more detailed evidence base than the strategic-level SHLAA. Building on the SHLAA results, it assesses the sustainability, landscape quality, strategic transport and infrastructure apacity of the identified sites. This ensures that the site allocations DPD is based on sound evidence.The SAM uses a wide-ranging assessment to ensure that all relevant factors are included and that each potential housing site is assessed on a comparable and consistent basis. It covers numerous assessment measures, grouped within nine overarching sustainability objectives.
The SAM incorporates the ‘suitability’, ‘availability’ and ‘achievability’ criteria referred to in PPS3 and in the CLG’s SHLAA Practice Guidance of July 2007. It extends further than simply giving precedence to all brownfield sites over greenfield land.
The nine over-arching objectives in the SAM reflect three broad issues:
- practical requirements – the necessary conditions of a development being implemented (eg, physical feasibility)
- locational issues - the relationship of the site to other land uses and policy designations
- development-related issues - the contribution that the proposed scheme will make to wider social objectives such as social inclusion and ‘building communities’
The outputs from the SHLAA and the more detailed SAM provide an essential part of the evidence base that LPAs will need in order to demonstrate a fiveyear supply.
