The 24 site analysis plates

How the set of 24 plates is composed for a site in London, what each plate shows, what it is used for and its limits.

Updated 7 October 2026This page was written by AI.

Overview

sitedia draws up to 24 analysis plates for a site in Greater London. Each plate answers one question that comes up when a site is reviewed or presented. The plate names on screen and in the files are in capitals (BUILDINGS, RAIL & BUS, LAND REGISTRY PLOTS).

The UK edition differs from the other editions in four places:

The UK has no zoning. The ZONING, DISTRICTS & ZONES and PLANNED FACILITIES plates show London Plan and heritage designations instead (see Planning designations in London)
There is no cadastre. The LAND REGISTRY PLOTS plate draws HM Land Registry title polygons, which are an indicative extent, not legal boundaries (see Land Registry plots)
The AERIAL plate is a live map (Esri World Imagery) shown on screen only. It is not included in downloads
Building age comes from residential Energy Performance Certificates and Colouring Britain, so many non-residential buildings are grey (see Building age from EPC)

List of plates

Planning

Plate	What it shows	Used for
ZONING	London Plan strategic designations: Central Activities Zone, Opportunity Areas, Strategic Industrial Locations, Locally Significant Industrial Sites, Metropolitan Open Land, other designated open space and Green Belt (GLA)	Seeing which London Plan policy areas the site and its surroundings fall in
DISTRICTS & ZONES	Conservation areas, listed buildings, scheduled monuments, registered parks and gardens, archaeological priority areas, LVMF protected vistas, Article 4 directions and World Heritage Sites (planning.data.gov.uk, Historic England, GLA)	Checking heritage and view constraints before massing
PLANNED FACILITIES	Public sites: schools, universities, health, parks and open space, transport and railway land (OS OpenMap Local, DfE Get Information about Schools, OS Open Greenspace, OpenStreetMap)	Seeing which public sites the site sits next to

ZONING plate at King's Cross, London, 500 m radius: Opportunity Area in orange, Central Activities Zone in pink, open space in green — ZONING plate (King's Cross, 500 m radius). Orange is the King's Cross Opportunity Area, pink the Central Activities Zone, green designated open space. Land with no designation is left blank

Urban fabric

Plate	What it shows	Used for
BUILDINGS	Building footprints (figure-ground), one colour	Reading the grain of the fabric (terraces, mansion blocks, large institutional buildings)
CITY BLOCK	Blocks enclosed by streets	Judging pedestrian permeability and the development unit from block size and shape
ROADS	Streets by hierarchy (line weight from main roads to local streets), pedestrian streets included	Checking vehicle access and the street the site fronts

Existing buildings

Plate	What it shows	Used for
BUILDING USE	Use in 7 classes: Residential, Commercial, Office, Education, Public, Industrial, Other. Grey = Unknown	Seeing where uses mix and where a single use dominates
BUILDING AGE	Construction period in 7 bands taken from the EPC age bands: before 1900, 1900–1929, 1930–1949, 1950–1966, 1967–1982, 1983–2002, 2003 onwards. Grey = no data	Reading development history (Georgian and Victorian terraces, interwar blocks, post-war estates, recent schemes)
BUILDING HEIGHT	Height in 5 bands by storeys: 1–4, 5–8, 9–14, 15–25, 26 or more. Storeys are OpenStreetMap building:levels where recorded, otherwise LiDAR height ÷ 3.25 m	Seeing the mid-rise range between the high-rise and low-rise thresholds
HIGH-RISE / LOW-RISE	Two plates, each with one threshold that you set	Basis for a height strategy and for deciding what counts as tall at the site

BUILDING USE plate, Bloomsbury, London, 500 m radius: residential in yellow, commercial in red, office and education in blue, public in green — BUILDING USE plate (Bloomsbury, 500 m radius). Light grey buildings have no use in the data

Surroundings and access

Plate	What it shows	Used for
GREEN SPACES	Parks and open space, other green and water (Overture Maps, © OpenStreetMap contributors)	Checking whether a «link to the square» argument holds at the real distance
RAIL & BUS	Stations (Underground, Overground, Elizabeth line, DLR, tram and National Rail) and bus stops from NaPTAN	Station proximity, main entrance orientation and walking routes
WALKING DISTANCE	How far you get on foot in 5, 10 and 15 minutes, measured along streets and footpaths at 80 m per minute	The real walking reach instead of a circle

RAIL & BUS plate at King's Cross, London, 500 m radius: stations as large magenta dots, bus stops as small blue dots — RAIL & BUS plate (King's Cross, 500 m radius). Large dots are stations, small dots bus stops

Ground and plots

Plate	What it shows	Used for
TERRAIN	Elevation bands and contours (interval chosen automatically). No contours are drawn where relief is under 3 m	The first plate to check when level changes affect the layout
SLOPE	Slope bands with limits at 5, 10, 15 and 20°	Finding steep ground for layout and earthworks
LAND REGISTRY PLOTS	Outlines of HM Land Registry INSPIRE Index Polygons (registered freehold titles), lines only	Reading the ownership grain together with CITY BLOCK
PLOT SIZE	The same polygons coloured by area in 5 bands (100 · 300 · 1,000 · 3,000 m²)	Seeing where land is finely divided and where one title covers a whole block

Environment

Plate	What it shows	Used for
SUN HOURS	Hours of direct sun at each point on the ground on the winter solstice (shadows every 10 minutes, summed)	Seeing which ground gets winter sun
SKY VIEW	Share of sky visible from the ground (0–100%), from building heights sampled in 16 directions up to 300 m	Telling enclosed ground (narrow streets, courtyards) from open ground
TREES	Borough-managed trees from the GLA London Public Realm Trees list, with crowns estimated from the tree records	Street and park tree distribution (listed trees only)
WIND ROSE	Annual wind frequency and speed by direction (observations, not simulation), from the TMYx weather file for London Weather Centre, St James's Park, 2011–2025	Orientation decisions

Aerial and density

Plate	What it shows	Used for
AERIAL	Esri World Imagery as a live map in the plate frame. On screen only: not included in PNG, SVG or ZIP downloads	Checking the abstract plates against what is on the ground
DENSITY	KDE heat map; choose total floor area (estimated) or building count	Seeing where development is concentrated

Combinations

Combination	What it checks
DISTRICTS & ZONES × HIGH-RISE	Whether tall buildings sit inside or outside conservation areas and LVMF view corridors
BUILDING AGE × PLOT SIZE	Areas of small titles and old buildings, where change happens title by title
HIGH-RISE × RAIL & BUS	Whether tall buildings cluster around stations
BUILDING USE × ROADS	Which streets carry commercial frontage
SUN HOURS × HIGH-RISE	Which buildings cause the deepest winter shade
TREES × GREEN SPACES	Whether tree cover follows the squares or runs along streets

Reading an empty plate

State	Meaning
No contours	Relief under 3 m within the frame
ZONING mostly blank	The site is outside the London Plan designations drawn on this plate. Local Plan policies still apply
DISTRICTS & ZONES blank	No designation in the datasets used. A blank area is not proof that there is no constraint
Few trees in a square	Only borough-managed trees are listed. Squares and gardens that the borough does not manage (for example, private garden squares) have no trees on the plate

Limitations

Heights come from Environment Agency LiDAR flown between November 2016 and May 2022. Where LiDAR gives less than 2 m (for example on buildings completed after the survey), the height falls back to the OpenStreetMap height, then OpenStreetMap storeys × 3 m, then 3 m. Buildings replaced after the survey can carry the old height. Spires and masts are under-read
Use combines OpenStreetMap tags, points of interest, non-domestic EPCs and site polygons. Part of it is estimated from land-use areas. Buildings with no evidence are grey (Unknown)
WALKING DISTANCE is an estimate at 80 m per minute. Crossings, signals, gradients and steps are not modelled
SKY VIEW includes buildings only, not trees. SUN HOURS includes buildings and terrain, not trees
Coverage: the UK edition covers Greater London only

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