Derbyshire council area

Selling Land in High Peak

High Peak Borough Council plans only for the part of the borough outside the Peak District National Park: five market towns from Glossop to Buxton and the villages between them, with Green Belt across the north. Its plan dates from April 2016, and in April 2026 its officers put the housing land supply at 2.78 years, still counting sites as they stood at 1 April 2023 but measured against the government's newer housing formula. On that basis the council approved up to 180 homes on open countryside at Chapel-en-le-Frith, land its officers said they would oppose in principle if five years could be shown.

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Five Market Towns on the Edge of the Park

Much of High Peak lies inside the Peak District National Park, and the council's adopted Local Plan applies only to the land outside it, home to around 83,000 people when the plan was adopted. The plan splits that land into three sub-areas that its monitoring reports still use: Glossopdale in the north, the Central area around Chapel-en-le-Frith, New Mills and Whaley Bridge, and Buxton in the south.

Five market towns. Policy S2 names Buxton, Glossop, Chapel-en-le-Frith, New Mills and Whaley Bridge, followed by eight larger villages: Charlesworth, Chinley, Dove Holes, Furness Vale, Hadfield, Hayfield, Peak Dale and Tintwistle.
A plan from April 2016. The High Peak Local Plan runs from 2011 to 2031 and set a target of 350 homes a year, 7,000 in all. The council's 2023 review document lists three of its policies as out of date, including S3 on housing numbers and H4 on affordable housing.
Delivery above the test's target. The Housing Delivery Test 2025 counts 903 homes built against a requirement of 749 over April 2022 to March 2025, a result of 121%.
Green Belt across the north. The plan describes the North West Derbyshire Green Belt extending across the northern and north central parts of the plan area, and the 2023 review document counts nearly 4,000 hectares of it.
Building in all three sub-areas. The monitoring report for 2024/25 counts 3,646 net new homes since 2011, split between Glossopdale (30%), the Central area (37%) and Buxton (33%).

So in High Peak the first question about any field is not its price or its size but which of three regimes it falls under: the National Park, the Green Belt, or the open countryside outside both. The answer changes almost everything that follows.

High Peak 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
121%
Meeting its housing requirement.
Five-year housing land supply
2.78 years
Short of five years: national policy treats this as evidence of unmet housing need. Position at 1 April 2023, measured against the standard method, 567 homes a year, plus a 5% buffer (2,977 homes over five years), applied to the supply identified at 1 April 2023. Stated by High Peak Borough Council (officer report to the Development Control Committee, 20 April 2026, citing the March 2025 interim position statement).
Checked source
Homes built against homes needed
903
of 749 needed, April 2022 to March 2025
Most recent strategic plan adopted
April 2016
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.

Which Land the Borough Council Decides

The Peak District National Park Authority is the planning authority inside the park boundary, and its guidance for applicants sends anyone outside the boundary to the local council, listing High Peak among them. Outside the park the borough decides, and the land it controls is judged in quite different ways depending on where it sits:

Drawn from the Peak District National Park Authority, the High Peak Local Plan 2016 and the August 2026 national framework.
Where the land is	Who decides	How housing is judged today
Inside the National Park	Peak District National Park Authority	National policy gives National Parks the highest status of protection in relation to landscape and scenic beauty, so general housing on open land is rarely possible.
Green Belt in the north and north centre of the plan area	High Peak Borough Council	Policy S5 does not apply. Homes need the land to be grey belt or previously developed, and grey belt housing must meet a need test.
Countryside outside both the Green Belt and the park	High Peak Borough Council	The supply shortfall counts as evidence of unmet need under policy S5, to be weighed against the harm rather than treated as an automatic finding.
Inside a settlement boundary	High Peak Borough Council	Policy S4 leans towards approval unless the harm substantially outweighs the benefits.

Only one change to the Green Belt came with the 2016 plan: the council concluded there was no net benefit in wider boundary changes and removed only some land at Furness Vale, to allow housing. Everywhere else the line drawn before 2016 still holds, which is why the grey belt test matters so much in the north of the plan area. Our grey belt guide explains how a field is judged against the purposes of the Green Belt and the need test that follows.

From 260 Homes a Year to 567

When the council opened its plan review in January 2023, its early engagement document put local housing need under the government's standard method at 260 homes a year, below the adopted plan's 350. Its last full supply statement, published in November 2023 with a base date of 1 April 2023, used the updated figure of 246 a year and counted 1,653 deliverable homes: 426 on large sites with permission, 182 on small sites, 883 on plan allocations, 140 from small windfall sites and 22 as an allowance within the National Park. That came to 6.4 years. The December 2024 version of the method more than doubled the yearly figure. Because the plan is more than five years old, national policy requires supply to be tested against the government's number, and the council has since measured the same count against it twice without recounting the sites:

Base date 1 April 2023 in every column. Sources: High Peak Borough Council supply statements of November 2023 and March 2025, and the officer report on application HPK/2025/0447 to the Development Control Committee of 20 April 2026.
Step	November 2023 statement	March 2025 interim statement	April 2026 committee report
Yearly need	246 homes	553 homes	567 homes
Five years with a 5% buffer	1,292 homes	2,903 homes	2,977 homes
Deliverable supply	1,653 homes	1,653 homes	Not restated
Result	6.4 years	2.85 years	2.78 years

The newest figure comes from the officer report on Crossings Road, which attributes to the council's March 2025 interim statement a need of 567 homes a year, 2,977 over five years, and a supply of 2.78 years. The interim statement itself gives 553 a year and 2.85 years, and the report does not explain the higher yearly figure. Nor does it restate the supply, but its result matches what the 1,653 homes counted at 1 April 2023 give: 2,977 homes over five years is 595 a year, and at that rate 1,653 homes last 2.78 years.

So the council's position rests on sites as they stood three and a half years ago. The interim statement said the next statement would be measured at 1 April 2025, and the council's monitoring page does not list one as of September 2026. More than half of the counted supply, 883 of the 1,653 homes, rests on plan allocations rather than on sites with permission.

Building Has Slowed Since the Peak

The council's monitoring report for 2024/25, published in December 2025, records net completions of 498 in 2017/18, 426 in 2022/23, then 268 in 2023/24 and 198 in 2024/25. The last is just over a third of the yearly need officers now use. A fuller statement may count newer permissions, but with completions at that level it would need a very large pipeline to reach five years against 567 a year. Affordable homes show the same gap: the Crossings Road report puts the borough's need at 526 a year, against an average of 74 delivered each year between 2016 and 2024.

Crossings Road: A Shortfall at Work in Chapel-En-Le-Frith

On 20 April 2026 the council's Development Control Committee approved BDW Trading's outline application HPK/2025/0447 for up to 180 homes on about nine hectares of sheep pasture on the western edge of Chapel-en-le-Frith. The officer report is plain about the land: it lies outside the built-up area boundary, in open countryside, is not allocated and conflicts with the development plan. The parish council called it an unallocated urban extension beyond the settlement boundary, and 288 objections were received.

Four Tests in Policy H1, and the One It Failed

Policy H1 of the 2016 plan lets the council consider sustainable sites beyond a built-up area boundary only where all four of its tests are met:

Adjoining and well related. The land adjoins the boundary, fits the existing pattern of development and suits the settlement's scale.
No prominent intrusion. It does not intrude prominently into the countryside or harm its character significantly.
Reachable services. Schools, doctors and shops can be reached on foot, by bike or by public transport.
Infrastructure. Local and strategic infrastructure can meet the extra demand.

Crossings Road adjoins the town on its south-eastern side and has houses on three sides, and officers found it passed three tests but failed the second, because of its spread into open fields west of Crossings Road. They were clear that it "would not be supported as a matter of principle" if the council could show five years of supply. Without it, the council applied the presumption in favour of sustainable development in the December 2024 framework then in force, the so-called tilted balance, under which permission is granted unless the harm significantly and demonstrably outweighs the benefits. Officers judged the landscape and visual harm moderate and permanent, set it against up to 180 homes, 54 of them affordable, and construction work and local spending, and recommended approval. The committee agreed.

The same land shows how much the supply position matters. An application for a single house there was refused in January 2023, and an inspector dismissed the appeal in February 2024, when, as the report notes, the council could show five years and its housing policies carried full weight. Officers took the same approach on five bungalows off Brown Edge Close in Buxton, approved at the same meeting, where they treated policies S2, S3, H1 and EQ3 as out of date for want of a five-year supply.

The August 2026 framework now puts land beyond a settlement's edge under policy S5, where a supply shortfall is evidence of unmet need to be weighed against the harm, not an automatic finding, and S5 does not reach the Green Belt. Crossings Road carried no protective designation of the kind national policy lists, which is what allowed the balance to be struck at all.

What the Permission Carries

The report sets out what the legal agreement and conditions secure:

Affordable homes. 30%, or 54 homes: 43 for social rent and 11 for shared ownership, all to national space standards.
Schools. Up to £1,001,394.24 for 32 extra places at Chapel High School, which has 943 pupils on roll against a capacity of 925, and up to £171,127.13 for special educational needs places. The 45 primary pupils fit at the town's primary school, so nothing was sought for them.
Health. Up to £180,000 for GP practices in the Goyt Valley.
Recreation. Play areas on site, plus £204,168 towards the Memorial Park, allotments, a grass pitch and a 3G pitch.
Travel. £10,000 to monitor a travel plan and a £102,600 bond, payable to the county council when work starts.
Nature and heritage. A 10% biodiversity gain on site, monitored for 30 years, and the northern field beside three Grade II listed cottages kept free of building.

That is more than £1.6 million, counting the bond, on top of the affordable homes and the land given to open space. Our guide to Section 106 and CIL explains how these sums are set, and we build them into our assessment from the start. The wider lesson is that a well related field outside the Green Belt, on the edge of a market town, can succeed in High Peak today without an allocation, because the missing supply carries real weight in the balance. With five years in place, the same field would have been opposed in principle.

Phosphorus and the River Wye Around Buxton

Part of the borough drains to the River Wye, within the Peak District Dales Special Area of Conservation. Since Natural England's advice letter of March 2022, the council's nutrient neutrality page says new homes in that catchment, including tourist accommodation and pitches, must show they add no extra phosphorus to the river. The council points applicants to Defra's Magic map to check the catchment boundary.

Check the catchment. A field outside it is unaffected; a field inside it needs a nutrient budget from the outset.
Look at the council's own mitigation. Its High Peak Upgrade scheme replaces old septic tanks and treatment plants in the catchment, and a High Peak Phosphorus Credits scheme is being developed, with details still to be published.
Allow for time. The 2024/25 monitoring report notes that discussions on nutrient neutrality were still going on with the developer of a site at West Tongue Lane in Buxton.

The Brown Edge Close scheme in Buxton shows how this works on a small site. The council's assessment found that the five bungalows, inside the catchment, would add 1.44 kg of phosphorus a year once a 20% margin was included. The answer lay off the site: the applicants agreed to upgrade a septic tank serving five existing homes to a package treatment plant, worth 3.90 kg a year, through a legal agreement the owners of those homes agreed in principle to sign, with the work finished before building starts. The committee deferred the scheme in February 2026 to look again at access, drainage, land stability and the nearby railway, then approved it in April after a motion to refuse was lost. Crossings Road, by contrast, lies outside the catchment, and nutrients were screened out of its assessment altogether.

Nutrient neutrality does not stop a site, but it adds cost and time to any scheme inside the catchment. We carry both, and they are part of our assessment before we make any offer.

The Land We Look for in High Peak

Fields of 2 acres or more on the edge of Buxton, Chapel-en-le-Frith or Whaley Bridge, outside the Green Belt and outside the National Park.
Land beside the larger villages, such as Dove Holes, Peak Dale or Chinley, that sits well against the existing houses.
Green Belt land in the north of the plan area that is enclosed by roads or building and may qualify as grey belt.
Former mills, works, yards and depots, which national policy supports reusing, in or out of the Green Belt.
Plots and backland inside the settlement boundaries of the five market towns.
Larger holdings that could be put forward for the plan to 2041.

Land inside the park boundary faces a much narrower path, and we will say so plainly in our review. For land that fits, we meet every planning cost, from the first surveys through to any appeal, and the price is fixed in an option agreement at the outset, above the land's current value. You keep farming or letting the land meanwhile, and if permission is not secured you keep it and owe nothing. Farmers may find our farmland page a useful starting point.

A Plan to 2041 Running Behind Its 2026 Timetable

The Review and Its Timetable

The council's Local Development Scheme of January 2026 keeps the review under the current plan-making system, before the new one takes effect, and cites both the national reforms and reorganisation as reasons for the timetable:

From the High Peak Local Development Scheme 2026. These are the council's target dates.
Stage	Council's timetable
Early engagement	January to March 2023 (held)
Draft plan consultation (Regulation 18)	First quarter of 2026
Proposed submission consultation (Regulation 19)	Fourth quarter of 2026
Submission for examination	Fourth quarter of 2026
Examination	Second quarter of 2027
Adoption	First quarter of 2028

The council's plan review page still shows only the 2023 early engagement, which drew 99 comments, and no draft plan, so the first quarter of 2026 has passed without the draft stage; in April 2026 officers described the emerging plan as in its infancy, too early to count in decisions. The council did invite fresh site suggestions, with a deadline of 2 July 2026, and said that sites put forward since January 2023 need not be resubmitted unless something has changed. The later dates are likely to move, but the order will not: the draft plan is the first real sight of which sites the council prefers, and evidence prepared before then carries most weight. For the stages in order, and what an owner can do at each, see our guide to call for sites and local plans.

The Next Supply Statement and Delivery Test

The next full supply statement will show whether permissions such as Crossings Road have narrowed the gap; until one appears, decisions rest on the count made at 1 April 2023. The Housing Delivery Test 2025 came out on 17 August 2026; at 121% none of its consequences applies, and with completions falling the next results are worth watching. The thresholds sit well below the current result: 95% for an action plan, 85% for the heavier 20% supply buffer, and 75% for the point at which national policy stops asking for proof of unmet need.

Reorganisation, Paused

The government's July 2026 decision would have folded High Peak into a new Derbyshire North Council from April 2028, and the borough's reorganisation page records that on 7 September 2026 the government paused that decision to review it, with no timescale known. There are no immediate changes to services, and High Peak Borough Council still decides applications and prepares the plan.

What This Means for Timing

Countryside outside the Green Belt and the park has its strongest case now, while the shortfall lasts and before a new plan with fresh allocations is adopted.
Green Belt land in the north can be looked at as possible grey belt now, and put forward for the new plan at the same time.
Land inside the park rarely suits general housing, whatever the borough's numbers.

The rest of the county is covered on our Derbyshire page.

Questions About Land in High Peak

My land is near Buxton. How do I know if the borough council or the Park Authority would decide an application?

It depends on which side of the National Park boundary the land sits. The Park Authority publishes a boundary map, and applications outside it go to High Peak Borough Council. We check this first in any review.

The council built more than its target. Why does it say it is short of land?

Because its plan is more than five years old, supply is tested against the government's standard method, which officers put at 567 homes a year in April 2026, more than double the 260 the council recorded in 2023. Against that, the homes it counted at 1 April 2023 come to 2.78 years.

Does the shortfall help a field in the Green Belt near Glossop?

Not directly, as policy S5 does not apply in the Green Belt. But the shortfall does meet the need test for grey belt housing, so a field that does not strongly serve Green Belt purposes can have a case. Larger schemes must also meet the Golden Rules.

I missed the July 2026 deadline for site suggestions. Is that the end of it?

No. The draft plan consultation is still to come, and land can be put forward and argued for then. Where we take a site on, we prepare the evidence and make the case.

My land drains to the River Wye. Can it still be developed?

It can, but new homes there must be nutrient neutral, which means showing no extra phosphorus reaches the river. The council runs a septic tank upgrade scheme and is developing phosphorus credits. We take on that work and its cost.

Tell Us About Your Land in High Peak

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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.