Selling Land in Brentwood

• Plots, large gardens and backland inside Brentwood, Shenfield, Hutton and Pilgrims Hatch.
• Yards, depots and former commercial land in the Green Belt with lawful buildings or hardstanding.
• Land within walking distance of Shenfield, Brentwood, Ingatestone or West Horndon station.
• Fields enclosed by existing homes, roads or the railway on the edge of Ingatestone, West Horndon or the main urban area.
• Larger holdings that could contribute to the growth the plan review has to find.

For land that belongs in the review, our work starts well before any application, with access, drainage, ecology, landscape and Green Belt evidence. We pay for all of it, under an option whose price is agreed on day one, above the land's current value. You keep using the land, and if permission is never secured you keep it and owe nothing. Our how it works page sets out the sequence.

• 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 five-year housing land supply statement, published in January 2026 with a base date of 1 April 2025, finds 5.18 years. The figures behind it are worth setting out, because the margin is slim:

The statement uses 400 a year rather than the government's standard method because the plan was then less than five years old. It leaves out any sites that might come through the plan review, as their delivery is not yet established.

What a Supply Above Five Years Means for a Field

Policy S5 of the August 2026 framework, the route for homes beyond a settlement's limits where unmet need is evidenced, does not apply in the Green Belt, and the adopted plan records that all of the borough's countryside lies within it. So S5 has little reach in Brentwood whatever the numbers say. Grey belt is where the numbers bite. National policy only allows homes on grey belt land where the need for them is evidenced, and the usual ways of showing that are a delivery result below 75% or a supply short of five years. With a result of 110% and a supply above five years, neither applies here today. A grey belt case for housing is therefore hard to make at present, and for most fields it will wait on a change in the supply position or on the plan review.

If you are selling a field in Brentwood today, that is the plain position, and it is why previously developed land, sites inside the towns and the plan review, each covered below, are where most opportunities lie.

The plan puts the main urban area of Brentwood, Shenfield, Hutton, Pilgrims Hatch, Warley and Brook Street at the top of its settlement order, then Ingatestone and West Horndon, then the smaller villages and hamlets. Where your land sits in that order goes a long way to deciding its route:

1. Inside the main urban area. Plots within the built-up area are judged under policy S4, which leans towards approval and allows refusal only where the harm would substantially outweigh the benefits.
2. Previously developed land in the Green Belt. Green Belt policy treats yards, depots, old commercial sites and plots carrying lawful buildings other than farm buildings differently from open fields, whatever the housing numbers say.
3. Near the stations. Policy L3 favours denser homes within an easy walk of a station with a good service, and it can reach some Green Belt land. With Elizabeth line trains at Brentwood and Shenfield, the walk to the platform matters more here than in most of Essex.
4. Through the plan review. Open fields that need a Green Belt boundary redrawn will, in most cases, come forward through the review rather than an application.

Our brownfield and yards page covers the second route, and the grey belt guide explains how Green Belt purposes are judged and the Golden Rules that follow.

The most important date for Brentwood land in the coming year is five years after the plan's adoption in March 2022. After that point, national policy generally swaps the plan's requirement for the government's standard method when a council tests its supply. The 400-a-year step behind the current 5.18 years would stop being the yardstick. We would not predict the result, but the margin today is only 84 homes, and a statement below five years would give well placed land an evidenced need it lacks now.

A Result That Clears Every Threshold, and Mid Essex Withdrawn

The Housing Delivery Test 2025 was published on 17 August 2026, and the test is refreshed annually. At 110%, none of the test's consequences applies to Brentwood. A result below 95% would require an action plan, below 85% would add a 20% buffer to the supply calculation, and below 75% would mean unmet need is treated as evidenced under policy S5. The pace on Dunton Hills and the other strategic sites will feed straight into future results.

In March 2026 the government decided that Brentwood, Chelmsford and Maldon would form a Mid Essex Council, with elections in May 2027 and services transferring in April 2028. On 7 September 2026 it withdrew that decision after new legal advice and opened a review, and the May 2027 elections will be held on existing council boundaries. For now, the borough council remains the body preparing the plan review.

Yards and Station Land Now, Open Green Belt at Preferred Options

• Previously developed land, sites within the towns and land near the stations can be looked at now, as none of them depends on the housing numbers.
• Open Green Belt land is best prepared for the preferred options stage, with the call for sites form as the way in.
• Unsure which applies? Our free review answers that first.