Selling Land in Bedford Borough

• Fields beside Bedford, Kempston or Biddenham that sit well against existing homes.
• Land on the edge of the larger villages, including Bromham, Clapham, Sharnbrook, Great Barford and Wootton, where roads and schools can take more.
• Smaller sites beside the villages that have seen little recent growth.
• Land within reach of a station, including Wixams and the planned East West Rail stop at Kempston Hardwick.
• Former farmyards, yards and commercial land on the edge of a settlement.
• Sites mostly outside the flood zones, with a road frontage or a clear route to one.

Land a long way from any village, or cut off by a river floodplain, is harder, and we will tell you so after our review. Land by a river or brook often works when the homes are kept to the drier ground, which our flood risk guide explains.

• An outright sale. You sell the land as it stands today, privately or at auction. The price is what a buyer will pay for it without planning permission, and the buyer takes on everything that follows.
• A conditional contract. You agree a sale now, but it only completes if planning permission is granted. Until then you keep the land, and the agreement sets out who applies for permission and who pays.
• An option agreement, the route we use. We agree your price at the start, in writing, set above what your land is worth today. We then pay for and run all of the planning work, at our own cost and risk. If permission is granted, we complete the purchase and you receive the agreed price on completion. If it is not, you keep your land and owe nothing.

For land that needs planning permission before it is worth more, an option means you know your price before any work starts and never spend a penny on planning. The ways to sell land for development, compared sets out each route in full.

On its own, a result of at least 85% but below 95% does little for a landowner. Policy S5 of the August 2026 National Planning Policy Framework treats unmet need as existing where a council scores below 75%, and Bedford is well above that. S5 also lets a council's failure to show five years of deliverable sites count as evidence of unmet need, and that is where Bedford stands.

The council's statement explains how the gap arose. Since the strategic policies of the Local Plan 2030 are older than five years, the council tests its supply against local housing need worked out by the national standard method, not the plan's figure. That comes to 1,235 homes a year, or 6,484 over five years once a 5% buffer is added, against 4,351 homes the council expects to be delivered.

What the Council Has Said About Weight

In May 2026 the council's head of planning told councillors that a lack of five-year supply "doesn't automatically mean that the whole of the Bedford Borough Local Plan 2030 is out of date". Policies that restrict housing may carry reduced weight, while those on design, heritage, flood risk, infrastructure, landscape and biodiversity often continue to carry significant weight. That is a fair summary of how S5 works in practice: the door is open for land that sits well against a settlement, and the ordinary planning tests still have to be passed.

The planning committee has already shown what that looks like on the ground. On 12 February 2026 it granted outline permission for 75 homes on land behind houses in Milton Road, Clapham, on land outside the village's settlement boundary and in conflict with its neighbourhood plan, over the parish council's objection. Officers weighed the supply shortfall in the balance and found the benefits outweighed the harm. The decision was taken under the framework then in force, but the lesson carries over: in Bedford today, a settlement boundary or a neighbourhood plan is not the end of the conversation for a field that sits well against a village.

Two Figures for the Same Test

The land supply statement quotes Bedford's earlier Housing Delivery Test result, published in December 2024, as 145%, and uses it to justify a 5% buffer. The Housing Delivery Test 2025 gives 94%. Both are genuine results, from different releases. A plausible reason for the drop is the same one the statement gives for the supply position: once the 2030 plan passed five years, the higher standard method figure replaced the plan's target in the sums. For a landowner, the newer result is the one that counts, and in its band it still does not bring a 20% buffer.

The inspector examining the 2040 plan concluded that it had been overtaken by events, and the council has since started again on a plan running to 2050. Local reporting at the time noted that the Universal proposal had been agreed between the company and the government while the examination was paused, changing the council's picture on homes, jobs and infrastructure.

The call for sites, launched on 10 July 2026, has a closing date of midnight on 30 October 2026. The council is asking for everything from small infill plots to large strategic locations, for homes, employment, community uses and renewable energy, and it asks for boundaries, proposed uses, capacity, delivery timing and known constraints. Anyone submitting must own the land or have the owner's permission.

The council's published timetable for the Local Plan 2050 sets out the stages, with three gateway assessments along the way:

The council says the programme is a live document, reviewed monthly and shared with government, so dates may move. Under an agreement with us we prepare the submission, the plans and the supporting evidence, and we keep making the case at every stage that follows. How the stages fit together is explained in our guide to local plans and site submissions.

If your land was not submitted to the call for sites, a field beside a village can still be weighed through an application while the supply is short, and the later stages of the plan take representations as well.

• 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. Which way the score moves is for the next release to show, and we do not guess at it.
• 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 years 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. The council's timetable runs a six-week consultation on the plan's scope and approach to engagement through September and October 2026, and puts the first gateway assessment in April 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.