Reading your results
The constraint panel lists every category checked, each with a status. This page explains what each status means — and, in particular, what Partial means and why it exists.
The three states
Clear. Nothing was found for this category within your search area, and the source that would have found it answered successfully. This is the only status that means "we checked, and there's nothing here."
Flagged / finding. Something was found — a designation, a boundary, a risk zone — with its distance from your pin, a plain-English note on what it means, and a link to the source. Distance is shown even where the finding sits outside your search area but nearby, so you get a sense of what's close even when it doesn't technically intersect.
Partial. The data source for this category could not be reached or did not respond successfully when the check ran. This is deliberately never shown as Clear. If we can't confirm there's nothing there, the honest answer is "we don't know," not "all clear" — a Partial result on flood risk, for example, must never be mistaken for confirmation that a site isn't in a flood zone.
Why this distinction matters
It would be easy, from a product point of view, to quietly treat "the source didn't respond" the same as "nothing was found" — the panel would look tidier, with fewer amber flags. We don't do this, on purpose. A failed source reading as clear is the single most dangerous kind of bug this product could ship: it would tell someone their site is fine when the truth is we simply don't know. If a category shows Partial, treat it as unchecked and either re-run the search, wait and try again, or verify that category directly with the relevant authority before relying on it.
A special case: Scotland's voluntary-submission layers
A handful of Scottish datasets — green belt, Tree Preservation Orders, Article 4 directions, vacant and derelict land, and air quality management areas — are compiled from individual councils choosing to submit data to a shared register (the Improvement Service's Spatial Hub), not from a single national source. Where the council covering your site hasn't submitted to one of these, the result names that council and shows Partial, never Clear — "this council supplies nothing" is a different claim from "nothing was found here," and the distinction matters exactly as much as it does for an unreachable source.
Distance and "nearest constraint"
Even on a Clear result, the app shows the distance to the nearest instance of that constraint type if one exists nearby — useful context even when nothing technically applies at your exact search area. This is a free-tier feature, available on every check.
Sources and licensing
Every finding is attributed to its source dataset. Where a designation comes from an AI-generated digest of a council document (used for things like conservation area appraisals or Article 4 direction schedules, available on paid reports), the digest is built from and quotes the underlying document rather than replacing it — always check the original document for anything that matters.
What to do with a finding
A finding is the start of due diligence, not the end of it. For anything with a decision riding on it — a purchase, a planning submission, a loan application — verify directly with the local planning authority or a suitably qualified professional. Reports state this plainly, and the same rule applies to what you see interactively in the tool.