Selling Land in Erewash

• Green Belt fields on the edge of Ilkeston, Long Eaton, Sandiacre, Borrowash, Breaston, Draycott or West Hallam that are already enclosed by development or roads.
• Previously developed land, including old industrial sites, depots and yards, in or outside the Green Belt.
• Land within walking distance of Ilkeston or Long Eaton stations.
• Sites in the few parts of the borough outside the Green Belt, where the unmet need route applies.
• Gardens, plots and backland inside the towns and the villages drawn out of the Green Belt, where policy S4 applies.
• Holdings with safe road access that are away from the Trent and Derwent flood plains, or large enough to keep homes on the dry ground.

A field that sits in the thin gap between two settlements faces the hardest test, and our review will say so plainly. Where we agree to go ahead, the price is fixed at the start, set above what the land is worth today, and we pay for all of the planning work. Our agreement stays in place while any application or appeal is being decided.

• 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.

By the time it was withdrawn, the review planned for 7,044 homes by 2040, as local reporting described it. During examination the government's figure for Erewash rose from 376 to 523 homes a year, and the inspector, Kelly Ford, identified a shortfall of around 820 homes, which the council tried to meet with further Green Belt land around Sandiacre, Breadsall Hilltop, Borrowash, Breaston, Draycott and West Hallam. In late 2025 she concluded the plan was unsound, citing a Green Belt assessment that lacked clarity and a proposal to add 67 acres to the Green Belt that had been dropped without explanation. She gave the council the choice of withdrawing or having the plan found unsound, and it withdrew.

That history matters for landowners in three ways:

1. The draft sites carry no weight now. Allocations in a withdrawn plan have no status. Land that was in it and land that was not are back on the same footing.
2. A fuller Green Belt review is coming. The inspector's criticism means the new plan will need a more thorough assessment of every parcel. Land with good evidence behind it can be put in front of that review.
3. The need figure has gone up. At 523 homes a year, the council must find more land than before, and it has already accepted that Green Belt land will play a part.

Our guide to putting land into a new local plan describes how a site is carried through the stages of a new plan. For Erewash, the next public stage will be the draft plan that follows the scoping report.

The withdrawn review's main brownfield allocation was the former Stanton Ironworks. The council has said it and the landowner have regarded the land as suitable and available for housing for more than a decade, and the review proposed about 1,000 homes there as a new settlement, subject to comprehensive remediation. How it is treated in the new plan is not yet decided.

Owners selling land near Stanton, or a smaller brownfield site elsewhere in the borough, are therefore working from a clean slate until the new plan's draft content is published.

Smaller previously developed sites matter too. Former works, depots, yards and redundant commercial units in the Green Belt can be developed under national policy where the effect on openness is acceptable, and they can count as grey belt. Farm buildings in agricultural use do not count as previously developed, although other routes may apply to them. If you own a yard or depot, our page on brownfield land and yards sets out what we look for.

The council reviews its plan timetable every month. In August 2026 it confirmed that every milestone so far had been met on time, and on 10 September it moved the publication of its Gateway 1 self-assessment back to 30 October 2026, to ensure it complies with the local planning regulations, pushing the later dates back with it. The stages still to come:

The November consultation is the first public look at the new plan's content and evidence, and the next point at which land with its technical work done can be put before the council.

Delivery is measured on a different clock. The Housing Delivery Test comes out yearly; the edition this page uses is the Housing Delivery Test 2025, published on 17 August 2026, and the next edition will move its three year window on to take in the year to March 2026. From 49%, one stronger year is unlikely to lift the borough over 75%, so it will go on being treated as short of homes, and the council's own record of 136 homes delivered in 2025/26 does not point to that stronger year. The figure that can move faster is the five-year supply. Each Green Belt permission granted before the plan is adopted adds to it, and a narrower shortfall would give the council firmer ground against the next speculative scheme.

The pause on reorganisation, announced on 7 September 2026, adds a further unknown. The Derbyshire decision is on hold while the review runs, and the May 2027 elections will be held on existing boundaries. If a successor council does arrive before the planned adoption in March 2029, it would inherit the plan in its final stages; if not, the borough council is set to finish the job itself. For an owner, the practical window runs from now to the Proposed Plan consultation in mid 2028, and grey belt applications remain possible under national policy throughout.