Berkshire council area

Selling Land in Windsor and Maidenhead

The Royal Borough sits one point below the 75% line, with more than four fifths of its land in the Green Belt and a Borough Local Plan adopted only in 2022. A new plan looking ahead to 2045 has just started, and Maidenhead is where most of the change is happening.

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The Royal Borough at a Glance

The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead runs along the Thames, which its Borough Local Plan describes as forming much of the northern boundary. It takes in Maidenhead and Windsor, Ascot, Sunninghill and Sunningdale in the south, and villages such as Cookham, Bray, Holyport, Eton, Datchet, Wraysbury and Old Windsor. Maidenhead station is on the Elizabeth line.

Just below the line. At 74% in the Housing Delivery Test 2025, the borough is treated as having unmet housing need, by the narrowest of margins.
A recent plan. The Borough Local Plan 2013 to 2033, adopted in February 2022, provides for at least 14,240 homes and released a limited number of Green Belt sites, mainly around Maidenhead.
Still mostly Green Belt. Even after those releases, more than four fifths of the borough is Green Belt.
A new plan starting. A scoping consultation and a call for sites for land up to 2045 both closed on 13 September 2026.
A neighbourhood plan for Maidenhead. At a referendum on 19 March 2026, 4,576 voters in seven Maidenhead wards backed the Maidenhead Neighbourhood Plan and 470 voted against, on a turnout of 13%. The council formally made it part of the development plan on 21 April 2026.

Is It 81% or 82%?

Different council documents give slightly different Green Belt figures, and they are not in real conflict. When the plan was adopted, the council said it "still protects 82% of the borough as green belt, with just 1% released for sustainable development". The plan's own Green Belt chapter says the amount of Green Belt "remains well over 81%" after the small amendments around Maidenhead and selected villages. The likeliest reading is that the first is a rounded headline and the second the more exact figure once the releases were taken out. For a landowner the difference changes nothing: outside the towns and larger villages, the starting assumption is that land is Green Belt, and the real question is whether it is grey belt.

Windsor and Maidenhead in Figures

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

Housing Delivery Test 2025
74%
Below 75%: treated as having evidenced unmet housing need under national policy S5.
Homes built against homes needed
1,571
of 2,136 needed, April 2022 to March 2025
Most recent strategic plan adopted
February 2022
The plan currently used to decide applications.
New plan progress
Updated
New plan started: scoping consultation and call for sites closed 13 September 2026
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.

What 74% Means in a Green Belt Borough

Below 75%, national policy treats housing need as evidenced, and policy S5 opens a route to approval on land outside a settlement that is well related to it. Across most of the Royal Borough that route is closed before it starts, because S5 does not apply in the Green Belt and the countryside here is almost all Green Belt. The result matters in three other ways instead:

Inside the towns and inset villages. Maidenhead, Windsor and Ascot, and the six larger villages the plan insets from the Green Belt, Broomhall, Cookham, Datchet, Eton, Sunningdale and Wraysbury, fall under policy S4. Homes there should be approved unless the harm substantially outweighs the benefits, and the shortage of homes weighs heavily in that balance.
In the washed over villages. The plan lists fourteen smaller villages, among them Bray, Bisham and Hurley, as washed over by the Green Belt. Limited infilling within a village remains one of the exceptions in Green Belt policy, which can suit a single plot or a small gap in a built frontage.
On grey belt. Where a piece of Green Belt does little for the purposes the Green Belt serves, it may count as grey belt, and evidenced unmet need is one of the conditions for building on it. Our grey belt explainer covers the Golden Rules that follow.

One caution. The Housing Delivery Test is re-run every year, and a borough at 74% can move back over the line after a single strong year of completions, particularly if the large Maidenhead allocations start to deliver. The unmet need position is useful today, but a case that leans on it alone is less secure here than in a council far below the line.

Maidenhead and the Sites the Plan Chose

The Borough Local Plan made Maidenhead its main growth location, with Windsor and Ascot taking smaller shares. The largest allocations are:

Allocation	Homes in the plan
Desborough, Harvest Hill Road, South West Maidenhead (AL13)	About 2,470, with 130 more after 2033
Saint-Cloud Way, Maidenhead (AL9)	About 550
Nicholsons Centre, Maidenhead (AL1)	About 500
Land west of Windsor (AL21)	About 450
Ascot Centre (AL16)	About 300

The plan notes that parts of the southern half of the South West Maidenhead area lie in Flood Zones 2 and 3, including part of the Desborough site, so the layout there has to work around the wetter ground.

Maidenhead Golf Course

The golf course is the site most people have heard of. The plan earmarked it for housing, a decision upheld after a legal challenge, and in February 2024 the council's planning panel unanimously granted outline permission for what local reporting described as a 1,500 home scheme with a primary and a secondary school. The council's own page for the site, which CALA Homes is developing as its joint venture partner under the name Elizabeth Quarter, says it will deliver "more than 1,400 homes, including 30% affordable". Outline permissions usually set a maximum, with the exact number fixed at the detailed stages, so a spread of this kind is normal. What matters to nearby owners is the scale either way: a new neighbourhood of well over a thousand homes, a short walk from Maidenhead station.

Owners of smaller pieces of land around Maidenhead, Cookham and Holyport should not read these allocations as closing the door. The new plan has to find land for the period to 2045, which is exactly what the call for sites was for.

The Thames, the Heaths and the Cost of New Homes

The river. The plan names Wraysbury, Old Windsor, Cookham and Windsor as the places at highest risk from the Thames. The Jubilee River, an 11.6 kilometre relief channel from Maidenhead to Eton, reduces how often and how badly properties in the borough flood, but riverside land can still sit in the higher flood zones. Our flood risk guide explains the sequential test.
The heaths. The Thames Basin Heaths Special Protection Area reaches the south of the borough, covering Sunninghill, Sunningdale, Cheapside and most of Ascot. Policy NR4 allows no net increase in homes within 400 metres of it. Between 400 metres and 5 kilometres, new homes must provide or pay towards Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace, known as SANG, at a minimum of eight hectares per 1,000 new residents, plus access management. Allen's Field is the council's strategic SANG. Open land that could serve as SANG can be useful to a nearby scheme in its own right.
Affordable housing. Policy HO3 asks for 40% affordable homes on greenfield sites of up to 500 homes and 30% on all other sites, applying to schemes of 10 or more homes. In designated rural areas it asks for 40% even on schemes of five to nine.

Each of these adds cost and care rather than ruling land out. The affordable housing share in particular comes off what a scheme can support, which is why we allow for it from the start. We carry the cost of the surveys and the design work from the first review to the decision.

The Next Borough Local Plan

The council has begun a new plan under the new plan making system. Its scoping consultation asked how the borough should grow and change over the next 20 years, and ran alongside a call for sites seeking land for housing, economic development, environmental and other needs up to 2045. Both closed on 13 September 2026.

The next steps are the council's assessment of the land put forward and a first draft of the plan's content. The new plan has to respond to the government's current method for calculating housing need, and with so much of the borough in the Green Belt, the council's updated Green Belt evidence will be one of the most important documents to watch.

If your land was not put forward by September, there are later stages at which sites can be raised, set out in our guide to calls for sites and local plans. Under an agreement with us, we prepare and pay for those representations and appear at the examination where it helps.

Land We Want to See in the Royal Borough

Plots and yards inside Maidenhead, Windsor, Ascot and the inset villages.
Small gaps in the built frontage of washed over villages.
Yards, stables and commercial sites with lawful buildings, including in the Green Belt.
Fields enclosed by roads, railways and existing homes on the edge of Maidenhead.
Land within a reasonable walk of Maidenhead and the other stations with frequent trains.
Open land near Ascot and Sunningdale that could provide SANG.

Land deep in the open Green Belt or on the Thames floodplain faces a higher bar, and our review will say that plainly. Our what we buy page shows the full range of land we take on.

Questions About Land in Windsor and Maidenhead

The borough is at 74%. Could that change next year?

Yes. The test is re-run each year, and a modest rise in completions would take the borough above 75%. That affects how some applications are weighed, but it does not change policy S4 for land inside the towns, Green Belt policy or the grey belt tests.

My land is in a washed over village like Bray. Can anything be built?

Sometimes a little. Limited infilling in villages is an exception in Green Belt policy, and grey belt may apply to some land on the edge. The size and shape of the gap matter, and we look at both in our review.

Is land near Ascot worth asking about, given the heathland rules?

Yes, unless it is within 400 metres of the heaths. Beyond that the mitigation is a cost and a design point, not a ban. Larger sites can provide their own SANG, and smaller schemes can usually contribute to the council's arrangements.

Does the Maidenhead Neighbourhood Plan affect my land?

If your land is in one of the seven Maidenhead wards it covers, yes. It is now part of the statutory development plan there, so any application has to address its policies alongside those of the Borough Local Plan.

Who pays for the flood, heritage and heathland reports my land would need?

We do. Under our option agreement we pay for every survey, report and application, including any appeal, and you keep using your land until the purchase completes. Your own legal and land agent costs are met by a contribution from us as well.

Tell Us About Your Land in Windsor and Maidenhead

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Sources

We update this page when new Housing Delivery Test results or local plan milestones are published. Planning positions change quickly, so always check the council's own website before relying on it.