England Protected Site Check: SSSI, AONB & Green Belt

Check up to 1,000 England postcodes or coordinates against 13 official nature and planning designations, from SSSI and ancient woodland to National Park, AONB and Green Belt. Official UK government open data from the Planning Data Platform (Natural England, Defra and council boundaries), Open Government Licence: no API key, no login, no personal data. One flat JSON row per location with a yes/no flag, name and reference for each designation, for $5 per 1,000 protected site checks. Invalid and non-England inputs are free.

	Free official maps (MAGIC, planning.data.gov.uk)	Paid planning report or records-centre search	This Actor
Coverage	All layers, one point at a time, by hand	One site per order	13 designations, up to 1,000 locations per run
Output	Web map	PDF report	Flat JSON / CSV / Excel, API and MCP
Price	Free, but manual	About £42–£72 per planning report, £170–£250 per ecological data search	$0.005 per checked location (errors free)

What can you do with England Protected Site Check?

1. Screen a land or site list. Land promoters, housebuilders and solar, wind, battery or data centre developers drop candidate sites inside a SSSI, SAC, National Park, National Landscape or Green Belt, and flag Nutrient Neutrality catchments, before anyone pays for surveys.
2. Start an ecological desk study. Ecologists get the statutory sites on the red line for a whole batch of sites at once before a Preliminary Ecological Appraisal or Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) assessment. habitatsSiteOnSite flags SAC, SPA and Ramsar sites, which can trigger a Habitats Regulations Assessment.
3. Add designations to property due diligence or an AI agent. Put nature and landscape constraints next to flood risk and heritage in a portfolio screen, or let an agent answer "Is this site in the Green Belt or a SSSI?" with the ready-made protectedSiteSummary sentence.

Screening data, not an ecological survey or a planning search. The Actor returns the official boundaries as published. It does not replace a site visit, an ecologist, Natural England's advice or a local authority search.

How to use

1. Click Start to try the default input (a postcode in Lyndhurst, New Forest, and Box Hill in the Surrey Hills).
2. Paste your postcodes or "latitude,longitude" strings, up to 1,000.
3. Download the rows as JSON, CSV or Excel, or call the Actor via the API or MCP.

Input

Only locations is required.

Input	Type	Default	What it does
locations	list	["SO43 7NY", "51.2506,-0.3106"]	UK postcodes (any spacing or case) and/or "latitude,longitude" strings. Via the API also objects with a label: {"postcode": "SO43 7NY", "label": "Site A"} or {"latitude": 51.2506, "longitude": -0.3106, "label": "Site B"}. Up to 1,000 per run, one row each, in input order.

{
  "locations": [
    { "latitude": 50.85, "longitude": -1.60, "label": "New Forest" },
    "51.2506,-0.3106",
    "MK9 3QA"
  ]
}

Postcodes are checked at the postcode centroid (one point from the ONS Postcode Directory). For a specific field or building, pass its coordinates.

Output

Real output (2026-10-03) for Box Hill, "51.2506,-0.3106", shortened (empty designations and some columns left out):

{
  "status": "ok",
  "input": "51.2506,-0.3106",
  "label": null,
  "latitude": 51.2506,
  "longitude": -0.3106,
  "insideAnyDesignation": true,
  "designationCount": 5,
  "designationsOnSite": "SSSI; SAC; Ancient Woodland; National Landscape (AONB); Green Belt",
  "habitatsSiteOnSite": true,
  "protectedSiteSummary": "The point is inside: SSSI (Mole Gap to Reigate Escarpment SSSI), SAC (Mole Gap to Reigate Escarpment), Ancient Woodland (ASNW), National Landscape (AONB) (Surrey Hills), Green Belt (Mole Valley). It lies within a Habitats Site (SAC, SPA or Ramsar), so development may need a Habitats Regulations Assessment.",
  "sssiOnSite": true,
  "sssiName": "Mole Gap to Reigate Escarpment SSSI",
  "sssiReference": "1000977",
  "sssiEntryDate": "2026-08-20",
  "sacOnSite": true,
  "sacName": "Mole Gap to Reigate Escarpment",
  "sacReference": "UK0012804",
  "spaOnSite": false,
  "ancientWoodlandOnSite": true,
  "ancientWoodlandStatus": "Ancient semi-natural woodland (ASNW)",
  "nationalParkOnSite": false,
  "aonbOnSite": true,
  "aonbName": "Surrey Hills",
  "greenBeltOnSite": true,
  "greenBeltName": "Mole Valley",
  "nutrientNeutralityCatchmentOnSite": false,
  "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. (c) Crown copyright and database right 2026.",
  "dataObtained": "2026-10-03"
}

Other test locations: the New Forest (50.85,-1.60) is inside a SSSI, SAC, SPA, Ramsar site, National Park and the Solent Nutrient Neutrality catchment; Trafalgar Square is in the Westminster AQMA; Milton Keynes (MK9 3QA) returns an ok row with every flag false.

Unknown postcodes, places outside England and invalid input return a free row that says what to change:

{"status": "error", "input": "CF10 1EP", "error": "Location #4 (CF10 1EP) is in Wales; this Actor covers England only (Welsh designations are published by Natural Resources Wales)."}

Output fields

Each designation has four columns: <key>OnSite (true/false), <key>Name, <key>Reference and <key>EntryDate. If a point is inside two areas of the same kind, values are joined with "; ".

Key	Designation
sssi, sac, spa, ramsar	Site of Special Scientific Interest, Special Area of Conservation, Special Protection Area, Ramsar wetland
nationalNatureReserve, localNatureReserve	National and Local Nature Reserves
ancientWoodland	Ancient Woodland Inventory (no names; see ancientWoodlandStatus: ASNW or PAWS)
nationalPark, aonb, heritageCoast	National Park, National Landscape (formerly AONB), Heritage Coast
greenBelt	Green Belt, by local authority
nutrientNeutralityCatchment, airQualityManagementArea	Nutrient Neutrality catchment, Air Quality Management Area

Field	Meaning
status	ok, not_found or error
insideAnyDesignation, designationCount, designationsOnSite	Whether any of the 13 covers the point, how many, and their short names
habitatsSiteOnSite	true inside a SAC, SPA or Ramsar site
protectedSiteSummary	One English sentence summarising the row
postcode, adminDistrict	Normalised postcode and local authority (postcode inputs)
attribution, source, sourceUrl, dataObtained	Attribution to pass on, the data source, the exact request used and the date it was read
error	On not_found / error rows: one sentence saying what to change

EntryDate is when the record was last published on the Planning Data Platform, not the original designation date.

How much does it cost?

Pay per event: you pay per location checked, not for compute time.

Event	Price	When
Actor start	$0.00005	Once per run
Protected site check	$0.005 ($5 per 1,000)	Once per ok row. not_found and error rows are free

Example	Locations	Cost
One site	1	about $0.005
A shortlist of candidate sites	50	about $0.25
A land list or portfolio	1,000	about $5.00

No monthly fee. Set Maximum cost per run when you start the Actor to cap spending: when the limit is reached, the remaining locations are not looked up or charged, and the status message says so.

Use via API & MCP (AI agents)

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/japan-open-data~england-protected-site-lookup/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"locations": ["SO43 7NY", "51.2506,-0.3106", "MK9 3QA"]}'

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")
sites = [{"postcode": "SO43 7NY", "label": "Site 1"}, {"latitude": 51.2506, "longitude": -0.3106, "label": "Site 2"}]
run = client.actor("japan-open-data/england-protected-site-lookup").call(run_input={"locations": sites})
for row in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(row["label"], row["status"], row.get("designationsOnSite"), row.get("error"))

MCP: add the Actor as a tool through the Apify MCP server (https://mcp.apify.com), e.g. ?tools=japan-open-data/england-protected-site-lookup. Recommended agent settings:

• Single question → {"locations": ["<postcode or lat,long>"]} and read protectedSiteSummary or the matching <key>OnSite flag.
• Many sites → send them all in one run with a label each and match rows by label.
• Prefer coordinates for fields and rural sites; a rural postcode centroid can be hundreds of metres away.
• Always check status; on not_found / error, show the error sentence to the user.

FAQ

Can I use this instead of an ecological survey or a planning search? No. It is a screening step that tells you which sites need one.

Does insideAnyDesignation: false mean there are no ecological constraints? No. Protected species, priority habitats, SSSI Impact Risk Zones, local wildlife sites and nearby designations are not included.

Is it legal to use this data commercially? Yes. Every dataset is published on planning.data.gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0, which allows commercial re-use with attribution. Each row carries the attribution text.

How fresh is the data? Every run queries the live Planning Data Platform, updated as Natural England, Defra and councils publish new boundaries.

What if I see "could not be reached" or "is not responding"? planning.data.gov.uk or postcodes.io is down. The Actor stops trying after about a minute and returns free error rows; run it again later.

Known limitations

• England only. Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are not covered (free error or not_found rows).
• The point only. Distances to nearby sites, Impact Risk Zones and buffers are not included.
• Coast and estuaries. In a check of 8 points, inland National Landscape boundaries matched Natural England's own copy; 3 points on the shore or at sea (Solent, Dorset coast) did not.
• Council data. Green Belt and AQMA boundaries come from councils and can lag local plan changes.
• Current designations only. Revoked or de-notified areas are excluded.
• Duplicates. The same location passed twice is checked and charged twice.

Data source and license

• Designations: Planning Data Platform, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, https://www.planning.data.gov.uk/ (13 datasets, each published with licence: ogl3).
• Attribution: Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. © Crown copyright and database right 2026.
• Postcodes: postcodes.io, from the ONS Postcode Directory. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right; Contains Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right; Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
• England check for coordinates: ONS Countries (December 2024) Boundaries UK BUC, Open Government Licence v3.0.
• Boundaries are as published, not surveyed, and are provided "as is".
• Not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by MHCLG, Natural England, Defra, ONS or postcodes.io.
• One small request per location (boundary polygons are never downloaded). No personal data.

More from Japan Open Data

• England Listed Building & Conservation Area Check — the heritage check for the same site list: official listed buildings, scheduled monuments, conservation areas and Article 4 directions for any postcode or coordinates in England, one row per location.
• UK Flood Risk Lookup by Postcode (England) — the sister check for the same property list: official Environment Agency Flood Zone 1/2/3, recorded floods and the nearest flood defence, one row per postcode.
• US Flood Zone Lookup by Address (FEMA NFHL) — official FEMA flood zone (A, AE, VE, X…), base flood elevation and FIRM panel for any U.S. address or coordinates.
• France Property Risk Lookup by Address (Georisques) — the same kind of property screening for France: official natural and industrial risks for any French address.
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• Taiwan Real Estate Sold Prices API in English — official Taiwan actual-price-registration sales (buildings, land, parking) by city and district, translated into English with price per ping and per m².
• France Building Permits API: Construction Leads — official French building permits (Sitadel) filed by companies, by department, commune or date, with SIREN, project type and floor areas.
• UK Importers & Exporters by Product (HMRC Data) — UK companies that imported or exported a product each month, by HS code or keyword, from official HMRC trade data, with new traders flagged for lead lists.
• UK Visa Sponsor Register Tracker (Daily Changes) — new, removed and downgraded UK visa sponsor licences from the official Home Office register, or check whether a company can sponsor workers.
• UK HGV Operator Licence Lookup (Official DVSA) — the official DVSA / Traffic Commissioner register of UK truck and bus operator licences.
• US Hail History by Location (NOAA NEXRAD Radar) — every hail day near any U.S. latitude/longitude with max estimated hail size.
• US Storm Reports API: Hail, Wind & Tornado (NWS) — U.S. hail, wind, tornado and flood reports from official NWS Local Storm Reports within hours.
• Argentina Fuel Prices API by Station (Official) — last reported prices at every Argentine gas station.
• Mexico Gas Prices API by Station (Official CNE) — today's regular, premium and diesel prices at every Mexican gas station.
• TSA Checkpoint Travel Numbers (Daily, Weekly & YoY) — daily U.S. TSA airport checkpoint traveler counts as clean JSON.
• Japan Postal Code & Address in English — Japanese postal codes and addresses in English/romaji, kanji and kana.
• UK NHS Organisation Lookup (Official ODS Codes) — GP practices, pharmacies, dentists, hospitals and NHS trusts from the official ODS register, by postcode, type or ODS code (organisations only).

Feedback

Found a wrong value or need another layer? Open an issue on the Issues tab with your input and what you expected. Next-version candidates: distance to the nearest SSSI / SAC / SPA, SSSI Impact Risk Zones, tree preservation orders, Wales and Scotland.