Berkshire council area

Selling Land in Reading

Reading keeps building above its target, yet the council's own monitoring report finds only 3.55 years of housing land, because its 2019 plan has passed five years and the yardstick has changed. An update of that plan to 2041 has reached its final modifications, and most new homes in the borough will come from land already inside the town.

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A Borough Built Out Almost to Its Boundary

Reading Borough Council has provided every local service in the town since 1998. Its boundary takes in central Reading, Caversham and Emmer Green north of the Thames, most of the old parish of Tilehurst to the west, and Southcote, Coley, Katesgrove, Whitley and Whitley Wood to the south. The centre stands on a low ridge between the Thames and the Kennet, close to where the two rivers meet.

The end of the Elizabeth line. Reading is a western terminus of the line to London, and its station is a major junction on the national rail network.
Hardly any greenfield land. The council's background paper to its plan update expects development to continue on previously developed land, with "very little opportunity to develop greenfield land".
Floodplain in the open spaces. The same paper records that the borough's larger open spaces generally lie in Flood Zone 3, land at high risk of flooding.
Strong recent building. The council counted 1,021 completions in 2023/24 and 890 in 2024/25, and the Housing Delivery Test 2025 records 2,922 homes built against 2,146 needed, a result of 136%.
A thin pipeline all the same. The January 2026 monitoring report concludes that Reading "cannot currently demonstrate a five year supply of housing".

Fast building behind it and too little land in front of it: that tension gives a sound urban site here more weight than its size alone would suggest.

Reading in Figures

The government's latest figures for the council, and where its local plan stands.

Housing Delivery Test 2025
136%
Meeting its housing requirement.
Homes built against homes needed
2,922
of 2,146 needed, April 2022 to March 2025
Most recent strategic plan adopted
November 2019
More than five years old, so its housing figures are usually replaced by the government's standard method.
New plan progress
Updated
Partial update under examination: main modifications published September 2026, adoption hoped for January 2027
Checked source

Sources: Housing Delivery Test: 2025 measurement, MHCLG, published 17 August 2026; Local plans: monitoring progress, Planning Inspectorate, August 2026. Local plans move quickly, so always check the council's own website for the latest position.

3.55 Years, Measured Against the Standard Method

The council's monitoring report for 2024/25 sets out its five-year supply at a base date of 31 March 2025. The main calculation, which counts all types of housing, works like this:

Source: Reading Borough Council, Annual Monitoring Report 2024 to 2025 (January 2026). A second version that counts ordinary homes only gives a lower result.
Part of the calculation	Council's figure
Yearly need used	997 homes, the standard method result on 31 March 2025
Buffer	5%, taking the yearly figure to 1,047
Five-year requirement	5,235 homes
Sites of ten or more homes with permission	2,992 homes
Larger sites awaiting a legal agreement	255 homes
Small windfall sites	475 homes, about 90 a year
Sites allocated in the local plan	None counted
Deliverable supply	3,722 homes
Result	3.55 years

The reason for using the government formula: the 2019 plan "became five years old in November 2024", so its housing policy H1, which planned for 689 homes a year, is treated as out of date, and supply is tested against the standard method instead. The report adds that the formula's result "has changed several times as new data are published".

Two Council Figures for the Same Need

That explains a gap between two council documents. The monitoring report works from 997 homes a year at 31 March 2025. The schedule of main modifications to the plan update, published in September 2026, states that the standard method gives 822 homes a year on 2025 data, and that this now forms the basis of the plan's housing policy. Neither is wrong; the formula is rerun whenever its housing stock and affordability inputs are refreshed. On our own arithmetic, the same 3,722 homes set against 822 a year plus the 5% buffer would come to roughly 4.3 years. The gap narrows, but on either figure the supply stays below five years until the council publishes a new statement.

What the Shortfall Changes for a Site

A supply short of five years counts as evidence of unmet need under S5, the policy in the national framework of August 2026 for land beyond a settlement. That is not an automatic finding, and the land must relate well to the town and be capable of being served by roads, schools and drainage, which describes very little in Reading. For the yards, workshops, garage courts and backland that make up most opportunities here, policy S4 is the test, and it expects permission to follow unless the adverse effects would substantially outweigh what a scheme brings. Our 2026 framework guide covers both.

An Update of the 2019 Plan, Stretched to 2041

The council chose to update its plan rather than start again, after a review found 45 of its 90 policies needed changing. The partial update was submitted to the government on 9 May 2025 and carries the plan forward to 2041.

The housing figure has moved as the examination has gone on. The council's Housing Needs Assessment, finalised in 2024, found a need for 735 homes a year, or 13,230 between 2023 and 2041. The background paper to the submitted plan worked to 825 a year, the target the lead councillor for planning still quoted in September 2026. The main modifications now rest the policy on the standard method result of 822 a year.

The submitted plan also says where it expects the homes to go:

Source: Reading Borough Local Plan Partial Update, submission draft (May 2025), section 3.2. The council rounds the figures.
Part of the borough	Homes planned to 2041	Share of the total
Central Reading	Around 8,700	About 59%
South Reading	Around 2,700	About 18%
West Reading	Around 1,900	About 13%
East Reading	Around 800	About 6%
North Reading	Around 700	About 5%

Outside the centre, the plan expects homes in hundreds rather than thousands, and the monitoring report already assumes around 90 a year from small sites that no allocation names.

The Examination So Far

The inspector, Joanna Gilbert, held a first round of hearings online on 11 and 12 November 2025 and a second at Reading Town Hall in February 2026. After further letters from the inspector during 2026, the council published its main modifications in September. Its Policy Committee agreed unanimously on 16 September to consult on the modifications, which local reporting expected to run from late September into October. Two matters drew particular attention: Reading has no sites for Travellers, and the inspector sought modifications on water quality.

Two Rivers and the Burghfield Zone

The Thames and the Kennet

Both rivers carry floodplain deep into the town, and the council's evidence puts most of its larger open spaces in Flood Zone 3. The main modifications record flooding in 2013, 2014 and January 2024, point to the council's investigation of the last, and ask schemes to consider flooding from rivers, surface water and groundwater alike. They also make clear that the sustainable drainage requirement does not apply to minor schemes, which helps small sites.

On a small plot the question is usually whether the building and a safe way in and out can sit on dry ground. The sequential test, and how a site passes it, is set out in our flood risk guide.

AWE Burghfield

The Atomic Weapons Establishment at Burghfield lies outside the borough, but AWE told the examination that its Detailed Emergency Planning Zone "extends into Wokingham Borough as well as Reading Borough". West Berkshire Council, which sets the zone, raised concerns about three employment allocations in south Reading that fall inside it, while accepting that Reading could not meet its need for employment land without them. AWE asked for the plan to say that proposals will be refused unless the Office for Nuclear Regulation does not advise against them, and to make clear that the plan seeks to avoid growth that adds to the population inside the zone.

For any land in the south of the borough, the zone boundary is the first line we check, because homes add residents in a way that offices and warehouses do not.

The Land We Look for in Reading

Yards, depots, workshops and small commercial sites in Caversham, Tilehurst, Whitley and the other suburbs.
Garage courts, backland and large gardens with room for a small group of homes.
Older commercial buildings in and around the centre that could make way for homes.
Plots within an easy walk of Reading station.
Sites whose buildable part lies outside the floodplain and outside the Burghfield zone.

Many Reading sites are small, so the work is about precision: title, access, the flood map, heritage and neighbours, all settled before the council sees a drawing. We pay for that work and for every application that follows, under an option whose price is fixed at the outset, higher than the site is worth today. The site stays yours to use until completion; should permission never come, it remains yours and you owe us nothing. Our page on brownfield and yards shows the kind of urban land we take on.

January 2027 and the Eighteen Months After

Adoption, and a New Yardstick

The lead councillor for planning has said he hopes the updated plan will be adopted in January 2027, once consultation on the modifications has closed and the inspector has reported. The monitoring report says the standard method will be used for supply "until such time as a new policy is adopted", so a new housing policy would reset the measure the supply is tested against. We make no forecast: whether the council can then show five years will depend on the requirement the inspector accepts and what its sites can deliver.

Further Work After Adoption

The same councillor described the period after adoption as 18 months of "due diligence" on Traveller sites and water quality, and local reporting says the modifications require a fresh assessment of Traveller accommodation needs within that time. A full update was floated at the same meeting for around 2028, as national reforms no longer allow partial updates. That fuller plan, prepared under the new system, is where the next choices about larger sites will be made.

The Next Delivery Test

The Housing Delivery Test 2025 was published on 17 August 2026, and a new edition follows each year. At 136%, Reading is far above every threshold that carries a consequence: an action plan is required below 95%, the supply buffer rises to 20% below 85%, and below 75% policy S5 treats unmet need as a given. The completions for 2023/24 and 2024/25 in the monitoring report fall within the three years the next edition would normally measure, an early sign that delivery has held up, though we do not predict the result.

Tilehurst and the Ridgeway Pause

In November 2025 the council asked for three Tilehurst wards of West Berkshire to move into the borough, as a change to the proposed Ridgeway Council, a merger of West Berkshire with most of the Vale and South Oxfordshire districts. That programme is now paused for a national review, and May 2027 elections will be held on existing boundaries, so the borough council, a unitary authority since 1998, takes the update to adoption.

What This Means for Timing

Urban sites can be looked at now. Policy S4 applies today, and the council's supply position is already on the record.
Larger sites that need an allocation are best prepared for the full plan that follows, with the evidence gathered in the meantime.
Land near the rivers or the Burghfield zone needs its constraints mapped before anything else, which is where our free review starts.

Questions About Land in Reading

Reading builds more homes than its target. Why does the council say it lacks five years of land?

Because the measure changed. Once the 2019 plan passed five years, supply had to be tested against the government's standard method rather than the plan's own figure, and the deliverable sites the council could count fell well short of that higher number.

I own a yard in Caversham near the river. Does flooding rule it out?

Not necessarily. It depends which flood zone the buildable part of the site sits in, whether there is a dry route in and out, and whether homes could replace today's use without adding to flood risk. We map this before anything else.

Will the plan update change the rules for my small site before I apply?

Some policy detail will change, as the update revises about half of the plan's policies. The support for homes inside the town comes from national policy S4, though, and does not depend on the update, so a small urban site rarely needs to wait for adoption.

My land is in south Reading. How do I know if it is inside the Burghfield emergency planning zone?

West Berkshire Council sets the zone, and it reaches into the south of the borough. We check the boundary at the start of our review, because new homes inside it face objections that land outside it does not.

Could the garden or garage court behind my house be worth putting forward?

Sometimes. The plan has a policy of its own on building in private gardens, and the council relies on small sites for part of its supply. The kind of plot we mean is described on our paddocks and small sites page.

Tell Us About Your Land in Reading

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Sources

Figures on this page come from the Housing Delivery Test 2025 (published 17 August 2026) and the Planning Inspectorate's local plan monitoring to August 2026, with newer plan milestones checked on 24 September 2026. We update the page when new results or plan milestones are published. Planning positions change quickly, so always check the council's own website before relying on it.