Selling Land in Milton Keynes

• Land next to or within one of the draft strategic extensions, including East of Wavendon, South of Bow Brickhill and Shenley Dens.
• Gardens, yards and backland inside the city, Newport Pagnell, Olney or Woburn Sands, where policy S4 applies.
• Previously developed land around Central Bletchley and Wolverton, where the draft plan concentrates renewal.
• Fields on the edge of a village whose neighbourhood plan is due for review.
• Larger holdings to the north and east of the city, where the new town proposals point.

Many sites here need patience, and our agreements allow for it. We pay for the evidence, the representations to the council and any application, with your price written into the option on signing and set higher than the land's present worth. Farming or other use carries on until completion, and if permission is refused the land is still yours with nothing to repay. See how it works for the stages.

• 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.

At 142%, none of the delivery test's consequences reaches Milton Keynes: no action plan, no 20% buffer, no automatic finding of unmet need under S5, the August 2026 framework's policy for land beyond settlement limits. Nor is supply short of five years, the other evidence of unmet need that national policy weighs under S5 for land well related to a settlement.

The council's assessment of five-year housing land supply for 2024/25 to 2028/29, dated October 2024 with a base date of 1 April 2024, counted 10,101 deliverable homes, 9,626 of them on 100 major sites. Plan:MK was already over five years old, so the assessment measured supply against local housing need on the standard method, not the plan's figure, and ran three tests while national policy was changing:

There was no shortfall to add: the city had built 1,563 homes more than Plan:MK required since 2016. Even the finalised standard method figure of 1,799 a year, used in the City Plan 2050, would need only 9,445 homes with a 5% buffer, fewer than the 10,101 counted.

The council's five-year housing land supply page, updated on 25 September 2026, still names this assessment as the latest, though it describes the yardstick as the Plan:MK requirement; the assessment itself starts from local housing need. Building has kept pace: the council told the inspectors in June 2026 of 9,564 homes in the four years to March 2026, against 7,196 at 1,799 a year. That table gives 3,090 for 2022/23, where the assessment recorded 2,895 net; on either count the city is well ahead.

For most open land, then, the route is the plan rather than a shortage: the City Plan 2050 at examination, the neighbourhood plans it leaves village growth to, and policy S4 inside settlements. That is a reason to start early, because a plan-led route rewards evidence that is ready before the inspectors report or a village reviews its plan, and we pay for that work.

The plan reached the Planning Inspectorate on 22 April 2026, and two inspectors were appointed on 27 April. Their hearings programme, in its fourth version of 24 September, sets the sessions in three blocks at Margaret Powell House in Central Milton Keynes:

1. 15 to 17 September 2026. Procedure, housing need and mix, Gypsy and Traveller needs, employment and retail, and the spatial strategy.
2. 29 September to 1 October. The site allocations, from Wolverton Railway Works and the Eastern Strategic City Extension to East of Wavendon and its buffers, Shenley Dens and Central Bletchley.
3. 6 to 8 October. Central Milton Keynes, housing policies and the GS6 settlement boundaries on 6 October, then the policies on employment, places, climate and heritage.

The inspectors' matters, issues and questions show where the argument lies. They ask whether the 9,407 homes above the standard method figure are justified as a buffer, whether any other council has asked Milton Keynes to take its unmet need, whether the strategy for the rural area is clear and justified, and whether the GS6 settlement boundaries rest on proportionate evidence.

For land outside the draft allocations, those last two questions count most: a tight village boundary, in a plan expecting almost nothing from rural sites, is exactly what an inspector can test.

After the last session in the programme, on 8 October, the inspectors will decide whether the plan can be found sound, with or without changes, which the council would put out for comment. The council's Local Development Scheme gives no dates for the report or adoption, because they "fall outside the control of the Council". Because the inspectors have asked what the five-year requirement would be after adoption, an adopted plan would reset the supply question too.

A Renewed Town of 40,000 Homes

The government's New Towns draft programme, consulted on from 23 March to 19 May 2026, names Milton Keynes as a "Renewed Town" of around 40,000 new homes, reinvigorating the city centre and expanding to the north and east. It says delivery should be possible at Milton Keynes East, with building in the centre and the north contingent on the right local transport solution. The housing minister has since said the final locations will be confirmed before the end of 2026, and until then all seven remain proposals.

On delivery, little turns on the next result. The test is re-run each year after the Housing Delivery Test 2025 of 17 August 2026, and only a result below 95% would bring any consequence, starting with an action plan.

Allocation Land at the Report, Village Land Now

• Land in or beside a draft allocation: the inspectors' report and any changes that follow are the moment to be ready.
• Land inside a town or village: S4 applies now, and nothing needs to wait.
• Land to the north and east of the city: the new town decision could reshape its prospects, so preparing evidence now is sensible.