Selling Land in Bracknell Forest

• Fields outside the Green Belt that adjoin Bracknell, Crowthorne, Sandhurst, Owlsmoor or College Town and lie more than 400 metres from the heaths.
• Green Belt land in the north and east of the borough that is enclosed by roads, housing or other development.
• Former yards, depots and commercial plots with lawful buildings, Green Belt ones included.
• Larger holdings where part of the land could become SANG alongside the homes.
• Sites with a safe road access, or a realistic route to one.

Land close to the heaths, or deep in open countryside, faces the hardest tests, and we will say so. Where a site is worth taking forward, we pay for the ecology, landscape, heathland and transport work under an option at a price fixed at the start, and you keep using the land meanwhile.

• 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.

The council's housing land supply note, reflecting the position at 1 April 2026 and updated in August 2026 to refer to the new national framework, finds 3.53 years. The workings show how a recent plan with a strong delivery record ends up short:

The buffer is the turning point. Since 1 July 2026, national policy has added a 20% buffer, for decision-making only, where a plan adopted in the last five years was examined under a framework older than December 2024 and its requirement is 80% or less of the current standard method figure. When the plan was examined, the inspectors recorded the standard method at 614 a year, and noted it had since dropped to 566 on newer data. The method changed in December 2024, and the council now puts the figure at 787, which leaves the plan's requirement on the wrong side of that line.

The contrast is sharp. The council's January 2025 statement, at 1 April 2024, flagged the rule in advance, applied a 5% buffer to the same 614 homes and found 5.15 years.

For an owner looking to sell land for development here, that shortfall is the reason sites the 2024 plan did not allocate deserve a fresh look now, rather than only at the next plan.

The Bracknell Forest Local Plan was adopted on 19 March 2024 and runs to 2037, replacing the 2002 local plan, the 2008 core strategy and some policies of the 2013 site allocations plan. The inspectors set its requirement at 10,438 homes over the plan period and found a committed supply of 9,110 already in place, leaving the new allocations a modest gap to fill. They deleted the largest proposal, a garden village at Jealott's Hill, finding that exceptional circumstances had not been shown to take 115.7 hectares out of the Green Belt, that its 1,350 homes were not needed to meet the requirement, and that it would cause significant landscape harm in a sensitive location.

What remains is led by Bracknell town centre:

Why the Projection Falls Away After 2029

The council's trajectory projects 502 completions in 2026/27, 663 and 597 in the following two years, then 309 and 146. Buckler's Park on the former TRL site at Crowthorne and Bracknell Beeches, both under construction, carry the early years. The four sites above that have not started have no homes projected before 2030/31, and the new plan is not due for adoption until 2030. The supply note also records 416 completions in 2024/25 and 546 in 2025/26, both below the plan's 614.

For owners of land outside these allocations, that falling projection is the gap the council will need other sites to fill, whether through the next plan or through applications while the supply stays short.

Supply Measured From April 2027, and a Plan That Turns Five in 2029

Since December 2024 national policy has asked for the supply to be updated every year, as the council's January 2025 statement notes, so the next one would normally measure from 1 April 2027. While the 20% buffer applies, the requirement stays higher than the plan alone would set.

The delivery test runs alongside it and is repeated every year; its latest release, the Housing Delivery Test 2025, was published on 17 August 2026. At 104% none of its consequences applies. The next edition should drop 2022/23, when the council's supply note records 437 completions, and add 2025/26, and what those years add up to is for that release to show. Falling under 95% would oblige the council to write an action plan, falling under 85% would give a second reason for the 20% buffer it already applies, and falling under 75% would mean S5 takes unmet need as proven.

Behind both sits the plan timetable. The council's Local Development Scheme for 2025 to 2028 schedules scoping and early participation for a new Local Plan in 2026/27, including a call for sites, then the first gateway assessment in autumn 2027, consultations in winter and spring 2028 and spring 2029, submission in autumn 2029 and adoption in spring 2030. Dates are the council's and may move. Our guide to how land gets into a local plan explains why the earliest stage is the one to be ready for.

The adopted plan turns five on 19 March 2029. The special 20% buffer tied to recent plans then falls away, and the government's standard method replaces the 614 a year as the yardstick. On today's 787 with a 5% buffer, that yardstick would be higher than the 643 a year used now, so the change alone would not close the gap.

Reorganisation does not reach the borough. Bracknell Forest is already a unitary council and remains the planning authority. In January 2026 it confirmed all-out elections for May 2027 and described talks on a Thames Valley mayoral strategic authority, with other Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Swindon councils, as work at a higher, strategic level.

Land Clear of the Heaths Now, the Rest at the Call for Sites

• Land outside the Green Belt and clear of the 400 metre zone, and grey belt land, is best looked at now, while the shortfall stands.
• Land that needs the new plan should be ready for the call for sites.