Selling Land in East Cambridgeshire

• Plots, gardens and backland inside the envelopes of Ely, Soham, Littleport and the larger villages such as Burwell, Bottisham, Haddenham and Sutton.
• Fields of 2 acres or more on the edges of the three market towns, particularly on higher ground in Flood Zone 1.
• Land at a village edge that could suit affordable homes for local people.
• Redundant farmyards, commercial yards and buildings with a lawful use.
• Larger holdings that could play a part in the next Local Plan.

For land that belongs in the next plan, flood, access, ecology and landscape studies come first, long before the council asks for sites. The cost of every study falls on us. The option we offer fixes your price on signing, pitched above the land's present value. Meanwhile the land stays in your hands to farm or let as before, and if planning is refused in the end, it remains yours with nothing owed.

• 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.

Official records date the plan to October 2023, which is correct but only part of the story. The council's Local Plan page explains that the plan was first adopted on 21 April 2015 and that some small changes followed on 19 October 2023, so it is now called the East Cambridgeshire Local Plan 2015 (as amended 2023). The 2023 work was a single issue review. It updated only the strategic housing policy, GROWTH1, and some of its supporting text.

The inspector who examined that review held hearings on 8 November 2022 and 28 March 2023. His report of 5 October 2023 records that the government's standard method, run with a 2022 base date, gave a minimum need of 599.78 homes a year, and he settled on 600 a year for the rest of the plan period. Policy GROWTH1 now provides for 5,400 homes between 2022 and 2031. The review proposed no change to the policies map.

Both dates are right, and each matters. The housing number, being under five years old, is still the one the council tests supply against. The envelopes, allocations and countryside policies around your land date from 2015 and were not reopened, and the plan runs only to 2031.

For a sale of land on the edge of Ely, Soham or Littleport, that means the 2015 envelope around the town, rather than the newer housing figure, is usually the line a site is judged against first.

So much turns on the envelopes. Policy GROWTH2 says that inside a defined envelope, homes to meet local needs will normally be permitted where there is no significant harm to the character and appearance of the area. Outside, it allows only a closed list of uses, which includes affordable housing exception sites, homes for rural workers, the re-use of existing buildings and specific allocations. That gives four realistic routes:

1. Inside an envelope. Plots, large gardens and backland in Ely, Soham, Littleport and the villages with envelopes. National policy S4 adds weight, allowing refusal only where the harm would substantially outweigh the benefits, and it does not depend on the supply figure.
2. Rural exception sites. Land at a village edge for affordable homes, one of the uses the plan allows outside the envelopes.
3. Existing buildings and previously developed land. Redundant farm buildings, yards and former commercial sites follow their own rules.
4. The next Local Plan. Larger fields on the edges of the towns and bigger villages, which will be chosen through a new plan once work restarts.

Neighbourhood Plans

Parishes have added their own layer. In 2024/25 alone, neighbourhood plans were made for Cheveley, Mepal, Soham, Sutton and Witchford, according to the council's monitoring report. We read the relevant one alongside the district policies before giving a view.

Bottisham, Lode and Swaffham Bulbeck

Only the south-western corner of the district lies in the Cambridge Green Belt. There, a yard or a plot carrying lawful commercial buildings is treated differently from an open field, and our grey belt guide explains the tests. For small plots across the rest of the district, our page on paddocks and small sites shows what we look for.

The supply report notes that the requirement turns five in October 2028. From then on, national policy generally expects the council to swap its 600 a year for the national formula when it checks supply, with the buffer set by the latest delivery result. How the figure then comes out is not for us to guess, but the yardstick behind today's 6.17 years will change on that date, whatever happens to building rates.

A New Plan Paused Since February 2025, With Reorganisation Still Unsettled

In February 2025 councillors unanimously agreed to put the new Local Plan on hold, having earlier aimed to finish it by the end of 2027. It gave three reasons: reorganisation could mean new boundaries and repeated technical studies, new national plan-making guidance was due, and its supply then covered six to seven years.

The government's review of reorganisation, launched on 7 September 2026, put Cambridgeshire and Peterborough on hold, and council elections in May 2027 keep today's boundaries. The district council remains the planning authority, the uncertainty it cited in 2025 has not lifted, and it has published no restart date.

On the figures, the delivery test is re-run each year, and the Housing Delivery Test 2025 was published on 17 August 2026. At 116%, none of its consequences applies. The district would need to fall below 95% before an action plan was required; a 20% buffer starts below 85%, and the automatic finding of unmet need under policy S5 below 75%. The council has updated its supply statement roughly once a year and has not dated the next one.

Envelope Land Now, Edge Fields Ready for 2028

• Land inside an envelope, rural exception sites and existing buildings do not depend on the plan or the supply figure and can be looked at now.
• Edge-of-town fields are best prepared so that their evidence is ready when the council restarts its plan or the 2028 change arrives, whichever comes first.
• Unclear which group your land falls in? That is the first thing our free review settles.