> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.checkthatfield.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# The free report

> What the free report tells you about a field, and how far to trust it.

The free report needs no account and no card. It can cover one field or up to 20 chosen together.

## What it tells you

> [card] The score and band
>
> A score from 0 to 100 for how likely the field is to be built on, and its band: Low (0 to 19), Moderate (20 to 44), High (45 to 69) or Very high (70 to 100).

> [card] The outlook
>
> How the field looks over the next 5 years and the next 15 years.

> [card] The planning process
>
> Where the field is in the planning process: interest, put forward, in the Local Plan, application, permission, building.

> [card] The strongest reasons
>
> The strongest reasons behind the score, in general terms, and how many push it up or down.

It also lists what we checked and how confident the score is. See [Confidence](#confidence) below.

## The planning process

The report shows six stages a field can go through on its way to being built on:

1. **Interest**: a promoter or housebuilder takes an interest in the land.
2. **Put forward**: the land is offered to the council for development.
3. **In the Local Plan**: the council allocates it for housing.
4. **Application**: someone applies for planning permission.
5. **Permission**: the council, or an inspector, grants permission.
6. **Building**: homes are built.

Fields can skip stages. A setback, such as a refusal, is marked on the stage it happened at; a refused field isn't a dead one. The free report shows the stages; the [deep report](https://docs.checkthatfield.com/app/deep-report.md) names the application or site behind each.

## Confidence

The report says how confident the score is: high, medium or low. Low confidence means we don't yet hold the council's Local Plan sites or its planning applications for that area. Those are where the strongest signs of development come from, so without them the score may be missing something. The report says which checks it couldn't make.

The **Data and sources** tab lists every check (protected sites, flood zones, Green Belt, farmland quality, closeness to a town or village, road access, services, Local Plan sites, planning applications, the council's housing supply, rights of way, and the web check) and whether it was made, along with the datasets behind the report and their licences.

## What's in the deep report instead

These tabs are locked in the free report:

* **Why this score**: every reason, with its source
* **On the web**: what the web check found (the free report says how many)
* **Planning nearby**: planning applications within 1 km
* **What could change**: what could move the score

When a score has moved, the free report says from what to what. The deep report says which reasons came and went.

## A report is a snapshot

A report is scored with the data we hold on the day it was checked, which it shows at the top. When we've found housing applications nearby since then, it says so. [Check again](https://docs.checkthatfield.com/app/check-again.md) is free.

> [!WARNING]
>
> A score is an estimate from published data, not a prediction. It is not planning or legal advice, and not a substitute for a conveyancer's local searches.


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