Selling Land in Braintree District

• Land next to Braintree, Witham or Halstead, with a road frontage or a realistic access.
• Fields adjoining the key service villages, especially where a neighbourhood plan is due for review.
• Land close to the growth locations, which may complement them or serve a later phase.
• Farmyards, old commercial units and other previously developed land in or beside a village.
• Larger holdings along the A12 corridor, and around Witham, which the draft plan describes as well connected by the A12 and the Great Eastern Main Line.

Where we see promise, the terms are straightforward. We agree a fixed price at the outset, above what the land is worth today, and carry every planning cost and risk ourselves, from the first surveys to any appeal. If permission is granted we complete and you receive that price; if not, the land stays yours and you owe nothing. You keep farming or letting it throughout, and our page on farmland explains what we look for in agricultural land.

• 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.

The council's latest published five-year supply report, which takes account of the December 2024 changes to national policy, covers 2024 to 2029 from a base of 31 March 2024. It measured supply against the Section 1 requirement of 716 homes a year and found 5.32 years:

Completions have run well above 716 a year: 847 in 2020/21, then 1,081, 1,088 and 1,145 in the three years to March 2024, which cut the backlog carried forward from 1,517 homes in 2021 to 300.

Why the Next Statement Matters

The same report explains that the council would keep using its own figure until Section 1 was five years old, in February 2026. That date has passed. The draft plan now gives the government's standard method for Braintree, as at 2026, as 1,133 homes a year, which is far higher than 716.

The council's supply page, last updated in January 2025, still lists the 2024 to 2029 statement as its latest and says work on the roll-forward is in progress. The next one will be the first measured against the higher figure. We make no prediction about it. If it showed less than five years, the August 2026 National Planning Policy Framework would treat that as evidence of unmet need, and because Braintree has no Green Belt, policy S5 could then reach the edge of every town and village. If it showed five years or more, the plan remains the main route for larger sites.

Most land in the district is not in a growth location, and a council meeting its targets gives less room for speculative applications. That does not close the door. The routes that remain are:

1. Representations on the final draft. Land put forward to the council for the review but left out of the draft can be argued for now, in writing, and later before the inspector. A strong case compares the site with the chosen ones on access, drainage, landscape and deliverability.
2. Sites inside development boundaries. The draft says schemes of fewer than 10 homes within development boundaries are not allocated but can still come forward. Inside a settlement, national policy S4 supports homes unless the harm would substantially exceed the benefits.
3. Rural exception, self-build and hamlet infill. The draft plan carries policies for self and custom build housing (LPR 37) and infill development in hamlets (LPR 43), and it leaves rural exception sites to come forward without allocation.
4. Neighbourhood plans. Where a parish has its own plan, its sites and settlement boundaries carry weight, and a review of that plan can be another way in.

Outside development boundaries, the draft limits development to the types national policy allows, so a field beyond the edge of a village generally needs one of these routes, or a change in the supply position, to succeed. How representations and examinations work is covered in our guide to taking land through a local plan.