Selling Land in Bedford Borough

New homes have been reaching well beyond the town, onto Bedford's edge and into its larger villages, and the council's supply statement shows how far. Sites it lists include:

• Land north of Bromham Road, Biddenham, with 489 homes still to come.
• Wixams, with 612 homes outstanding across villages 2 to 4.
• Milton Road, Clapham, listed at 500 homes.
• Hill Farm, Sharnbrook, listed at 500 homes.
• Beauchamp Park, Bromham, listed at 390 homes.

Two things follow. First, the larger villages are already taking substantial schemes, so a further site beside one of them has to show that roads, schools and drainage can cope with what is already coming. S5 asks for exactly that, requiring the scale of the scheme to be one the settlement and its infrastructure can accommodate. Second, the smaller villages do not feature among the big sites in the statement, and a modest, well placed scheme there can meet a real local need without raising the capacity questions a large edge-of-town site does.

Much of the borough is open farmland, and fields beside a village with a lane frontage and a sensible relationship to the houses are the land we most want to hear about here.

The resort site covers about 193 hectares at first, with room to grow to around 280, on the historic brickworks at Kempston Hardwick. Alongside the park, the plans include expanding the part-built Wixams station, a new station on the East West Rail line to replace Kempston Hardwick station, and dedicated slip roads from the A421. Forecasts put the jobs it will support, across construction, operation and the supply chain, at about 28,000.

The council's questions and answers on the new plan say it must recognise the cumulative effects of nationally significant projects, naming the theme park and potential new towns. That tells landowners two things. Demand for homes and workers' housing around Bedford, Kempston and Wixams is likely to rise, and the new plan will have to find land for it. But the park itself gives no neighbouring field permission, and land close to the new roads and stations will be judged on access, noise and landscape like anywhere else.

The resort land is a former brickworks, and other land nearby can carry a similar industrial history, so the ground needs checking before a layout is fixed. We commission and pay for those surveys.

• The next Housing Delivery Test. It is published once a year, and the Housing Delivery Test 2025 appeared on 17 August 2026. At 94%, dropping under 85% would put a 20% buffer on top of the five-year requirement and widen the gap described above, and a fall below 75% would bring the unmet need route in S5 into play on the score alone. A rise to 95% or more would remove the need for an action plan. We make no forecast either way.
• The next land supply statement. The council has said it will publish updated housing supply figures later in 2026. Until it does, the 3.35 year position stands, and a new figure will be worth reading closely against the standard method requirement.
• The call for sites and the first consultation. Submissions close on 30 October 2026, and the council's timetable shows the sites it has received published in January 2027.
• Universal and East West Rail. Work on the resort, the Wixams station expansion and the East West Rail station at Kempston Hardwick will shape where the new plan looks for land.

For timing, the two routes run side by side. While the council cannot show five years of supply, a well related site can be put forward by planning application now, with the ordinary tests on access, flooding, heritage and landscape still to pass. The same land can go into the call for sites before 30 October, so it is in front of the council whichever route moves first. We pay for both, you keep using your land, and our how it works page sets out each step of the agreement.