Derbyshire council area

Selling Land in Bolsover

Bolsover has built over a third more homes than its plan has asked for since 2014 and has passed every Housing Delivery Test since the test began. But its plan, adopted in March 2020, is more than five years old, so its land supply is measured against the government's higher figure, and at 1 April 2026 the council counted 4.82 years, 71 homes short. For the first time in years, land beyond the settlement edges has an evidenced need to weigh, while the council's new plan is not timetabled to start until June 2027.

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Four Towns and a String of Villages Along the M1 and the Robin Hood Line

Bolsover District Council runs its services from The Arc in Clowne and covers about 160 square kilometres in the north east of Derbyshire, home to 83,773 people in 2024. The Local Plan for Bolsover District ranks its settlements in four tiers in policy SS3:

Small towns. Bolsover and Shirebrook.
Emerging towns. Clowne and South Normanton.
Large villages. Creswell, Whitwell, Pinxton, Tibshelf and Barlborough.
Small villages. Fourteen, from Blackwell, Glapwell and Pleasley to Langwith, Scarcliffe and Whaley Thorns.

Each settlement has a development envelope drawn on the policies map, and inside it urban forms of development are generally acceptable in principle. Outside it, policy SS9 treats the land as countryside.

On the motorway. The plan notes that junction 30 of the M1 lies inside the district, with junctions 29 and 29a just beyond it, and that the worst congestion is in the south, where the A38 meets the M1 at junction 28.
Four stations. The Robin Hood line calls at Shirebrook, Langwith-Whaley Thorns, Creswell and Whitwell.
Green Belt around two settlements. Only part of the Sheffield and North East Derbyshire Green Belt reaches into the district, around Barlborough and Clowne.
Well ahead on delivery. The council built 1,277 homes against a requirement of 622 in the Housing Delivery Test 2025, a result of 205%.

Two things decide most sites here: whether the land sits inside or outside an envelope, and whether it lies in the pocket of Green Belt around Barlborough and Clowne or in the open countryside elsewhere.

Bolsover in Figures

The government's latest figures for the council, its latest five-year housing land supply, and where its local plan stands.

Housing Delivery Test 2025
205%
Meeting its housing requirement.
Five-year housing land supply
4.82 years
Short of five years: national policy treats this as evidence of unmet housing need. Position at 1 April 2026, measured against local housing need by the standard method plus a 5% buffer, 386 homes a year or 1,932 over five years. Stated by Bolsover District Council (Annual Position Statement, Planning Committee 8 July 2026).
Checked source
Homes built against homes needed
1,277
of 622 needed, April 2022 to March 2025
Most recent strategic plan adopted
March 2020
More than five years old, so its housing figures are usually replaced by the government's standard method.
New plan progress
No recent stage listed
Check the council's website for its timetable.

Sources: Housing Delivery Test: 2025 measurement, MHCLG, published 17 August 2026; Local plans: monitoring progress, Planning Inspectorate, August 2026. Local plans move quickly, so always check the council's own website for the latest position.

Past Five Years Old, and Now 71 Homes Short of Five Years

The plan set a floor of 272 homes a year. Once it passed its fifth birthday in March 2025, national policy required the council to test its supply against local housing need under the standard method instead, because the council's review found the plan needed updating, in large part because of the steep rise in housing need targets. The annual position statement at 1 April 2026, taken to planning committee on 8 July 2026, sets out the result:

Source: Bolsover District Council, Annual Position Statement of Five-Year Housing Land Supply on 1st April 2026, Tables 4 and 6.
Step in the calculation	Council's figure
Local housing need, standard method	368 homes a year
Five years of need	1,840 homes
Buffer	5%, or 92 homes, to give choice and competition in the market for land
Five-year requirement, 2026/27 to 2030/31	1,932 homes, or 386 a year
Deliverable supply counted	1,861 homes
Shortfall	71 homes
Result	4.82 years

The move to the new method was not a cliff edge at first. When the December 2024 changes arrived, a January 2025 report to planning committee re-ran the sums at April 2024 against 353 homes a year, 371 with the buffer, and still found 6.12 years. Two years on, need has risen to 368 a year, and the supply counted has not kept pace. The council used the housing stock figures released in May 2026 for the calculation, and says that switch alone added 3 homes a year, or 15 over five years.

A Supply That Runs Ahead, Then Falls Behind

The statement expects deliveries well above the 386 a year needed in each of the first three years, then below it in 2029/30 and 2030/31, so the shortfall builds at the back of the period. The list of major sites behind the figure shows where the homes come from. Bolsover town carries most of them, 966 of the 1,583 homes expected from major sites in the five years. The largest contributions:

Land between Welbeck Road and Oxcroft Lane, later phases. 449 of its 547 homes within the five years, starting in 2027/28.
Land south west of Brockley Wood, Oxcroft Lane. All 161 homes, not yet started.
Land off Langwith Road and Mooracre Lane, phase 2. 155 of 217 homes, with 62 left for later.
Outside the town, land south of the Model Village in Creswell. 36 homes a year, 180 in all, with 101 beyond 2031.

How Officers Are Applying It

In May 2026, before the new statement, officers recommending refusal of a static caravan on countryside land at Carr Vale still wrote that the council is able to demonstrate a five-year housing land supply and that there was no basis for the tilted balance. The July report changed that. Officers told the committee that the council is not able to demonstrate five years for 2026/27 to 2030/31, that any refusal must rest on sound and demonstrable harm, and that the shortfall may lead to more speculative applications on countryside beyond the development envelopes, where a refusal may be overturned at appeal. They added that those applications could also help the council regain five years.

The report also looked ahead to policies S4 and S5 in the government's December 2025 draft framework, which the August 2026 framework now applies. With a gap of 71 homes, the quality of a site and how well it sits against its settlement will carry most of the weight.

Twelve Years of Building Ahead of Target

Policy SS2 of the plan asks for at least 5,168 homes from 2014 to 2033, with land for about 5,700 to allow a 10% margin. Completions have outrun the yearly requirement every year since 2018/19:

Source: Bolsover District Council, Annual Position Statement 2026, Table 2. The plan's 272 a year applies to 2014/15 to 2024/25 and the council uses 378 for 2025/26. In total, 4,527 homes against 3,370 required, 1,157 more.
Year	Net completions	Against the requirement
2014/15	253	19 short
2015/16	325	53 over
2016/17	290	18 over
2017/18	248	24 short
2018/19	291	19 over
2019/20	439	167 over
2020/21	446	174 over
2021/22	537	265 over
2022/23	491	219 over
2023/24	359	87 over
2024/25	404	132 over
2025/26	444	66 over the 378 then required

Completions peaked at 537 in 2021/22, and the last three years brought 359, 404 and 444, the last two above the 386 a year the council must now plan for. The council records that it has passed the Housing Delivery Test every year since the test was introduced in 2018, but its July 2026 report also points out that national policy does not let this oversupply count towards the five-year sums. The plan's five-year review, taken to planning committee in February 2025, concluded, in the words later reported to committee, that it had been very successful in delivering development, and that changes in national policy meant an update was needed, though not immediately.

The Sites Carrying the Plan

Bolsover North (policy SS4), about 950 homes on 38 hectares, 880 of them within the plan period, with a relocated infant school, extra care housing and a town park.
Clowne Garden Village, 1,500 homes in the plan, of which 1,050 are expected by 2033.
The former Whitwell Colliery (policy SS6), at least 200 homes and 5 hectares of business land in the plan, and 450 homes in the council's 2026 list of major sites, none of them expected before April 2031.
The Coalite priority regeneration area (policy SS7), 32 hectares of employment land on the Bolsover side of a site that crosses into North East Derbyshire, where the plan records about 660 homes on the other side of the boundary.
Pleasley Vale (policy SS8), a second priority regeneration area.

The outline application for Clowne Garden Village (17/00640/OUT), on land north of Clowne including part of the town centre at Hickinwood Lane, returned to committee in May 2025 for an update after an earlier resolution to approve. The 2026 list of major sites now puts it at 1,800 homes, but counts only 180 of them, 90 in each of the last two years, within the five years, leaving 1,620 for later. Whitwell Colliery and Coalite are both old pit and works land, and our page on brownfield and yards explains how we look at land of that kind.

Envelopes, Countryside and the Barlborough Green Belt

Delivery at 205% rules out the delivery test as a route, but a supply of 4.82 years opens national policy routes that were closed in Bolsover a year ago. How each kind of land is treated:

Inside a development envelope. Plots, backland and redundant commercial sites within Bolsover, Shirebrook, Clowne, South Normanton and the villages fall under policy S4 of the August 2026 framework, which tilts towards granting permission and keeps refusal for cases where the harm substantially exceeds what the scheme brings. This is the most open route in the district today.
Countryside outside the envelopes. Policy S5 of the national framework supports homes beyond a settlement edge where housing need is shown to be going unmet, for land that relates well to the place beside it and where local services can take the growth. A supply short of five years is the usual evidence, and Bolsover now has one. It is evidence to be weighed against policy SS9 and any harm, not an automatic finding, so a field that sits properly against Tibshelf, Pinxton or Whitwell has a case to make, while one cut off from the village by open land still does not.
Green Belt around Barlborough and Clowne. S5 does not apply in the Green Belt. Grey belt, meaning Green Belt land that does little for Green Belt purposes, can take housing only where need is evidenced, typically by a supply below five years or a delivery result under 75%. The first of those now applies here, so the grey belt test is open, though the land itself must still qualify, and larger schemes would also face the Golden Rules, which set requirements for affordable housing, infrastructure and public green space.
Previously developed land. Former works, depots and yards with lawful buildings or hardstanding have their own routes in national policy, including inside the Green Belt, whatever the supply position. Farm buildings do not count.

The Green Belt picture may not stay fixed. The council's April 2025 Local Development Scheme report names changes to Green Belt policy as one of the two reasons the plan must be updated, alongside higher housing need, and says a new Green Belt review will be required in the immediate term. The grey belt guide sets out what such a review tests.

A New Plan Timetabled From June 2027

Bolsover's own timetable is a long one. The Local Development Scheme, in force from 17 April 2025, uses the 30-month plan-making process set up by the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 and starts the work in mid 2027:

From Bolsover District Council's Local Development Scheme, April 2025. Dates are the council's own.
Stage	Council's timetable
Plan-making work begins	June 2027
First public consultation	October 2027
Pre-submission consultation	October 2028
Submission for examination	February 2029
Possible examination hearings	June and July 2029
Inspector's report	October 2029
Possible adoption	December 2029

Before that, the scheme gave priority to two growth plans, one for Shirebrook and one for Creswell, the second paused until a new GP surgery in Creswell makes progress. Meanwhile the council has said it will keep assessing the sites put to it through its Land Availability Assessment. For open fields that the shortfall does not help, getting land in front of that process before the first consultation in 2027 is the practical step, and our guide to call for sites and local plans walks through how the stages work.

The Land We Look for in Bolsover

Plots, backland and redundant buildings inside the envelopes of Bolsover, Shirebrook, Clowne and South Normanton.
Former works, depots and yards anywhere in the district, including around Barlborough in the Green Belt.
Fields of 2 acres or more against the envelope of a town or large village, such as Tibshelf, Pinxton, Whitwell or Creswell, for an application now or for the next plan.
Land within an easy walk of Shirebrook, Creswell, Whitwell or Langwith-Whaley Thorns station.
Larger holdings near the M1 junctions that could serve the higher need figure the next plan must meet.

With a shortfall of 71 homes, officers warning their committee of more applications to come, and a plan still years away, the early evidence decides which sites stand out: access, drainage, ecology, heritage and, near Barlborough, the Green Belt case. We carry out and pay for all of it. Our option is agreed at a fixed price from the start, set above what the land is worth today, you go on using the land, and if permission never comes you keep it and owe us nothing. The steps are set out on our how it works page.

A Shortfall of 71 Homes and a Plan Not Due Until 2029

The Next Position Statement

Until the council publishes its next statement, with a base date of 1 April 2027, 4.82 years is its own figure and the one applications are weighed against. Several things will shape the next one: the year's completions, the permissions granted in the meantime, including on the speculative applications officers said could help the council regain five years, and the government's need figure, which moves each year with the latest housing stock and affordability data. Each new statement also drops a strong year from the front and adds one at the back, and the 2026 statement already shows its later years below need. The gap could close or widen, and we make no forecast either way.

The Delivery Test

The Housing Delivery Test 2025 was published on 17 August 2026, and a new edition follows each year. At 205%, Bolsover sits a long way above every threshold. A result under 95% would call for an action plan, under 85% would add a 20% buffer to the supply sums, and under 75% would treat unmet need as established, so the test offers no route here while delivery holds up.

Reorganisation, on Hold

On 16 July 2026 the government decided to place Bolsover in a new Derbyshire North Council with Chesterfield, North East Derbyshire, High Peak, Derbyshire Dales and the north of Amber Valley, due to begin in April 2028. On 7 September 2026 it paused that decision for a review, with no timescale for the outcome, and confirmed that elections in May 2027 will go ahead on existing boundaries. Since the district's own plan work is not due to begin until June 2027, whichever council ends up preparing the plan will inherit the higher need figure and the Green Belt review the district has said it needs.

What This Means for Timing

Land inside an envelope, and previously developed land, can be looked at now, as neither depends on the supply figure.
Open fields that sit well against a settlement edge can be looked at now under S5 while the shortfall stands, and are worth preparing for the 2027 consultation in any case.
Green Belt land near Barlborough and Clowne can be tested as grey belt now, with the council's Green Belt review as the longer route.

Questions About Land in Bolsover

Bolsover builds far more homes than its plan asks for. Why is it short of land?

Because the yardstick has changed. The plan asked for 272 homes a year, but since its fifth birthday the supply has been measured against the government's figure, now 368 a year, plus a 5% buffer, which comes to 386. The homes built above the old target do not count towards the five-year sums, and the council itself says the rise in housing need was a large part of why the plan must be updated.

My field is next to the Clowne Garden Village land. Does that help my chances?

It can help in the longer run, as roads, schools and services planned for a large site can make the land beside it easier to serve. The council expects only 180 of the village's homes before April 2031, so for now the stronger point is the shortfall itself: a field that relates well to Clowne and lies outside the Green Belt can be considered under S5 without waiting for the next plan.

I own Green Belt land near Barlborough. Could it count as grey belt?

It may. Homes on grey belt land need an evidenced shortfall, and since the council's 1 April 2026 statement Bolsover has one. The land itself must still qualify by doing little for the purposes of the Green Belt, and larger schemes must meet the Golden Rules. We assess both before recommending anything, and the council's planned Green Belt review remains the longer route.

The council's plan work does not start until June 2027. Is it worth doing anything now?

Yes. With the supply below five years, well placed land on a settlement edge can be looked at now, and the council keeps assessing sites put to it through its land availability process. Land that already has its access, drainage and ecology evidence in hand is better placed either way, and land inside an envelope or previously developed land can often be looked at straight away.

I have an old haulage yard near Shirebrook, outside the town's envelope. Is it treated like farmland?

Not usually. Land with lawful non-agricultural buildings or hardstanding counts as previously developed and is judged on different tests. Its planning history comes first, so that is where our review starts.

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Sources

Figures on this page come from the Housing Delivery Test 2025 (published 17 August 2026) and the Planning Inspectorate's local plan monitoring to August 2026, with newer plan milestones checked on 24 September 2026. We update the page when new results or plan milestones are published. Planning positions change quickly, so always check the council's own website before relying on it.