Selling Land in South Cambridgeshire

• Plots, gardens and backland inside Sawston, Histon, Cottenham, Linton, Melbourn and the other larger villages.
• Yards, depots and commercial land with lawful buildings, including around the Green Belt villages.
• Land beside Northstowe, Waterbeach, Cambourne or Bourn Airfield that could give those schemes access, drainage or open space.
• Larger holdings beyond the outer edge of the Green Belt that could be put forward in a future plan review.
• Land in or next to a parish preparing a neighbourhood plan that might allocate sites.

Our farmland page covers larger holdings. Whichever route fits, we pay for every survey, drawing and application under an option at a price agreed at the start, set above what the land is worth today. You keep farming or using it until completion, and should permission be refused, the land stays yours with nothing to pay. How it works sets out each step.

• 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.

Until autumn 2026 the two councils reported a single supply figure for Greater Cambridge. Their housing land supply addendum of September 2026 now counts each district on its own, partly because the government issues a separate delivery result for each. The district's sum is this:

The 2018 plan's 19,500 homes over twenty years average 975 a year, so the standard method, used because the 2018 plans are more than five years old, asks for more. The addendum also says policies S/5 and S/12 of the district plan, the first of which set the 19,500 figure, now carry very limited weight. Even so, the councils count 3,574 homes more than the buffered requirement.

Where the Counted Homes Come From

The four new settlements supply 5,040 of the 9,895 homes, a little over half, so their pace is what could move the figure. It would take the loss of more than a third of the counted homes to bring the district under five years, though.

For an owner selling land beside a village rather than a new town, that margin means the supply figure gives an application little help today, and the routes in the next two sections matter more.

The Green Belt reaches around three to five miles from the edge of Cambridge, and the councils' assessment lists 41 villages that are inset within it or sit on its outer edge, among them Girton, Histon and Impington, Fulbourn, Great Shelford, Sawston and Comberton.

The assessment judged land against local purposes, among them preventing communities around the city from merging. The national grey belt test is narrower: it asks whether land strongly serves checking sprawl, stopping neighbouring towns from merging or preserving historic towns, and the second speaks of towns, not villages. A gap between two villages may matter locally without failing that test.

Why Grey Belt Housing Is Hard Here Today

Grey belt housing still needs evidenced unmet need, usually shown by a delivery result under 75% or a supply below five years. South Cambridgeshire has neither, and with supply now counted district by district, the city's shortfall does not carry across the boundary. Policy S5, the national route for homes beyond settlement edges where need is unmet, does not reach Green Belt land at all.

That leaves three routes: previously developed land, such as a yard or former commercial site, which national policy treats differently from open fields; release through a plan; and, if the numbers ever turn, a grey belt application. The full grey belt tests, and the Golden Rules attached to them, are in our grey belt guide.

The final consultation on the Greater Cambridge Local Plan closed on 25 September 2026. The councils' Local Development Scheme, approved by both councils on 21 July 2026, sets submission for December 2026, and the councils' plan page expects the examination to begin in early 2027. On adoption it will replace the 2018 plans for both councils and every adopted area action plan.

Competition for a place in the plan is fierce. Nearly 1,000 sites, able to take more than 115,000 homes, have been put to the councils since the 2019 call for sites, against a need the draft plan sets at 48,069 homes for 2024 to 2045. Most will not be chosen this time, and land with evidence in hand will be best placed for the next review. How that cycle runs is covered in our call for sites guide.

The Standard Method Until Adoption, and No Reorganisation for Now

Until adoption, the standard method stays the yardstick. The addendum notes that national guidance provides for a joint figure only where councils share an adopted joint plan, and that together the two districts would have scored 121% in the latest delivery test. A joint figure would blend the district's surplus with the city's shortfall.

The delivery test is run every year; the Housing Delivery Test 2025 dates from 17 August 2026, and at 148% the district faces none of its penalties. Those begin with an action plan under 95%, then a 20% buffer on the supply under 85%, and at under 75% policy S5 treats unmet need as proven.

Nor is the planning authority about to change. Plans for new unitary councils in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough were put on pause on 7 September 2026 as part of a government review, with the May 2027 elections held on existing boundaries. The district council remains the planning authority.

Village Plots Now, Open Farmland Through the Plan

• Village plots and brownfield land can be reviewed now; neither depends on supply.
• Open farmland is mostly a plan review matter, where early evidence counts.
• Land near the new towns is best judged against their masterplans and the water timetable.