Selling Land in Huntingdonshire

• Fields of 2 acres or more against the built edge of St Neots, Huntingdon, St Ives, Ramsey or Bury.
• Land beside service centres such as Brampton, Godmanchester, Kimbolton, Sawtry, Somersham or Yaxley.
• Village sites of around a hectare, the scale the council sought in May 2026.
• Land in Flood Zone 1, clear of river floodplain.
• Farmyards and redundant buildings inside or on the edge of a village.
• Holdings next to the large sites, where land can help with access, drainage or open space.

Where a site suits an application now, we prepare it in full; where it belongs in the plan, we build the evidence for examination and the next review. The cost is ours throughout, the option fixes your price at the outset, set higher than the land is worth today, and you keep farming or using the land until completion. Our how it works page shows each stage.

• 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 two measures look different ways. The delivery test counts homes already built over April 2022 to March 2025. The five-year supply looks forward, and once the 2019 plan turned five the council had to test it against the government's standard method instead of its own plan figure. The council's Annual Monitoring Report for 2024/25, published on 24 November 2025, sets out the sum:

Work the numbers and the story is plain. The yardstick rose by more than half, from 804 to 1,232 homes a year, while the building rate did not. Completions over the five years to March 2025 ran at 1,041, 1,053, 1,250, 1,276 and then 858, so only the two peak years cleared the new yearly figure, and the latest was the lowest of the run. The gap between the homes required and the homes counted is 1,562.

What the Council Itself Concludes

The monitoring report is direct: the council cannot demonstrate a five-year supply, so the presumption in favour of sustainable development applies and the relevant Local Plan policies are treated as out of date. Its monitoring and evidence page repeats the position. Under policy S5 of the August 2026 framework, a shortfall of this kind is evidence of unmet need for land beyond a settlement's edge. It is not an automatic pass. The site must relate well to the town or village, be of a scale its roads, schools and drainage can take, and pass the ordinary tests on flood risk, landscape, design and access. For a field that does, the council's own numbers are on its side.

In May 2026, after its preferred options stage, the council consulted on additional preferred site allocations. It said they would give greater resilience to the development strategy and help it keep the five-year supply the government requires, and it pointed to the national aim of more sites of a hectare or less to diversify the housing market. The six proposed allocations came to 225 homes:

• Bythorn, Home Farm: 15 homes on just under a hectare.
• Catworth, Fruit Field: 25 homes.
• Ellington, land west of Grafham Road: 35 homes.
• Grafham, south of Village Farm: 35 homes.
• Ramsey Forty Foot, Woodlane Farm: 25 homes.
• Spaldwick, east of Stow Road: 90 homes on 6.1 hectares.

The same paper set out a reserve site, Sapley Park Garden Village, in two phases of 1,530 and 5,470 homes. Alongside the big new communities, the council wants modest village sites. Land inside a village's built-up area has a separate route under policy S4, which leans towards approval: a scheme there is refused only if its harm would substantially outweigh its benefits, whatever the housing numbers say. What we look for at this scale is set out on our paddocks and small sites page.

For an owner with a field of around a hectare beside a smaller village, that May 2026 paper shows the council itself looking for land of that size, not only for new towns and urban extensions.

The council set a window from 16 September to 11.59pm on 28 October 2026 for representations on the pre-submission plan. Its Local Development Scheme, last updated on 18 May 2026, shows submission in December 2026, by the national deadline of 31 December 2026, examination from 2027 and adoption in early 2028. The council's call for sites closed on 31 January 2025, so from here the plan is tested for soundness.

A Gap of 1,562 Homes, and Reorganisation on Hold

The last statement came in the monitoring report of November 2025, with a base date of 1 April 2025. The next one, a year on, will again rest on the standard method while the 2019 plan remains the adopted one. We would not predict the outcome, though closing a gap of 1,562 homes would take a large rise in deliverable sites.

Alongside it runs the delivery test, repeated annually; the Housing Delivery Test 2025 in force was published on 17 August 2026. At 136%, the district is clear of all three triggers: an action plan under 95%, a 20% buffer under 85%, and a presumption of unmet need under 75%. Here it is the supply position that counts.

On 7 September 2026 the government paused the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough proposals while it reviews the national programme, and confirmed that the May 2027 elections will use existing boundaries. The district council stays the planning authority and carries its plan to examination.

Edge Land Before Adoption, Village Land at Any Time

• Well placed edge-of-settlement land has its strongest footing before the new plan is adopted, while the shortfall stands.
• Larger holdings are best prepared for examination and for the review that will follow.
• Land inside villages can be looked at now, as it does not depend on the numbers.