Selling Land in Cheshire West and Chester

• Fields that adjoin Northwich, Winsford or one of the key service centres outside the Green Belt, clear of the key settlement gaps.
• Land on the edge of Tarporley, Tattenhall, Malpas, Kelsall or Farndon that the new plan may need for village growth.
• Green Belt land around Chester, Ellesmere Port, Frodsham, Helsby or Neston that is contained by roads, housing or rising ground and may be grey belt.
• Former yards, workshops and commercial sites with lawful buildings or hardstanding.
• Larger holdings of 20 acres or more near the four main towns, for the new plan's allocations.

Land here needs evidence on access, drainage, ecology, landscape and, where relevant, the Green Belt purposes, before an application or a plan submission. We pay for all of it. The option price is fixed at the start and set above today's value, you carry on using the land, and if permission is not granted the land stays yours with nothing to pay. Our how it works page explains 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.

Part One set a requirement of at least 22,000 homes from 2010 to 2030, or 1,100 a year. The council's Housing Land Monitor Summary Report 2026, published on 4 September 2026, records 22,862 net completions by 31 March 2026: the plan's total for twenty years, reached in sixteen. The recent years show the pace easing:

Last year was the first since 2013/14 in which completions fell below the plan rate.

Why a Council Ahead of Its Plan Is Short of Land

The yardstick moved. When the council reviewed Part Two in June 2024, it recorded that its 2020 review of Part One found no update was needed, partly because the plan's 1,100 homes a year was around double the government's local housing need figure at the time. Since December 2024 the standard method has risen far above the plan figure, and because the plan is more than five years old, supply is tested against it:

The requirement barely moved, while the deliverable supply fell by 519 homes. The 2025 report had found 1.89 years, so figures quoted before September 2026 are a year out of date. Of the 3,269 homes counted now, 1,897 are on development plan sites with permission, 521 on other permitted sites, 631 from windfall, 210 from a small sites allowance and 10 from prior approvals. The council's scoping document puts the stock of unbuilt permissions at about 4,125 homes.

Here it is that falling count of deliverable homes, rather than the record of past building, that gives a well placed site its case for development today.

Part One's spatial strategy planned at least 5,200 homes for Chester, of which about 1,300 were to come from a single Green Belt release at Wrexham Road. Part One's explanation adds that where a key service centre is constrained by Green Belt, its figure reflects what it could take without Green Belt release. Any further change to Chester's Green Belt boundary will be a matter for the new plan, and until then the grey belt tests are the main route for open Green Belt land.

Open land around Chester therefore has two realistic routes today: a grey belt case made field by field now, or evidence prepared for the new plan when it reviews the boundary.

Five large employment sites stay in the Green Belt but are recognised in policy GBC 1: Chester Zoo, the Countess of Chester Health Park, Dale Barracks, Chester Business Park and the Urenco site at Capenhurst. Limited infilling or redevelopment of these previously developed sites is allowed where it has no greater impact on openness.

Areas of Special County Value

Policy GBC 2 names eight landscapes where development must respect local character: Beeston, Peckforton and Bolesworth; the Dee coast; Delamere and Utkinton; the Grosvenor Estate and Dee Valley; the Helsby and Frodsham Hills; the Weaver Valley; Willington; and the Wych Brook valley. These are local designations, not national ones. They shape the layout, scale and screening of a scheme rather than ruling land out, but a field in one needs landscape evidence from the start.

Plan-making formally began with a notice of intention on 12 June 2026, and a scoping consultation ran from 7 September to 5pm on 28 September 2026. The scoping document says it is not asking for sites, and that a separate, targeted call for sites will follow later in 2026. The council's timetable sets out the rest:

The winter consultation on the spatial strategy is where the council will first show how it spreads its need between Chester, the towns and the villages. Land put forward in the targeted call, with evidence behind it, is best placed for that stage. What a council weighs at that point is explained in our guide to local plans and calls for sites.

A Gap of Close to 7,000 Homes, and Strong Delivery

The housing land monitor is published each year. The 2026 report came out in September, and the next would measure supply at 1 April 2027. We do not forecast it. The gap today is close to 7,000 homes over five years, 10,135 needed against 3,269 counted, and new allocations in the plan are the council's main way to close it. Delivery tells a different story: in the Housing Delivery Test 2025, published on 17 August 2026, the council reached 244% and faces none of the test's consequences, which are reassessed with each yearly edition.

Edge and Grey Belt Land Now, Larger Holdings for the Winter Consultation

• Land beyond the Green Belt that sits well against a town or village can be looked at for an application now, while the shortfall weighs heavily.
• Green Belt land that may be grey belt can be assessed now on its own boundaries.
• Larger holdings are best prepared for the targeted call for sites and the winter consultation.