At 31^st March each year, officers survey all the commercial sites that have a full current planning permission and could potentially be being developed. An assessment is then made of the stage of development; complete, under-construction or unimplemented and this is recorded into a database for commercial land monitoring.  In relation to employment sites (B1-B8 land uses), these are surveyed in order to monitor whether levels of development are meeting the targets contained within the Structure Plan.

In the past, the Employment Land survey (B1-B8) was conducted with a survey date of 30^th September, but since September 2005, this has been changed to a survey date of 31^st March, bringing it in line with the residential land monitoring survey that is undertaken.

At the same time, monitoring procedures have been expanded to include commercial sites as well as employment sites. This means that instead of just monitoring land uses B1, B2 and B8 (Businesses, Industrial Units and Storage/Distribution Centres), gains and losses of commercial units such as shops (A1), financial and professional services (A2), hotels (C1) and assembly & leisure facilities (D2) are also now included within our survey. Whilst there are no targets covering these land uses within the Structure Plan, Regional Government requires that Local Authorities now monitor these land uses.

Source: Commercial Development Monitoring Survey 2005-06 (1 April 2005 - 31 March 2006)