Selling Land in Thurrock

Thurrock is a unitary council on the north bank of the Thames and its own planning authority. It covers about 163 square kilometres and had close to 181,000 residents at the 2021 census. Purfleet-on-Thames, West Thurrock, Grays and Tilbury line the river, with Stanford-le-Hope and Corringham to the east, Chadwell St Mary and East Tilbury between them, and Aveley and South Ockendon to the west. Villages such as Orsett, Bulphan, Horndon-on-the-Hill and Fobbing sit in the countryside between the towns.

• Three land neighbours, and Kent across the river. Thurrock shares land borders with Brentwood and Basildon in Essex and, across the county line to the west, with the London Borough of Havering. Dartford and Gravesham in Kent face it across the Thames.
• A long riverfront. The borough has over 18 miles (29 km) of Thames frontage, home to the Port of Tilbury and the Lakeside shopping centre.
• Seven stations. Purfleet, Chafford Hundred, Ockendon, Grays, Tilbury Town, East Tilbury and Stanford-le-Hope all sit inside the borough.
• Green Belt over most of the open land. The council's March 2025 timetable put the Green Belt at 70% of the borough.
• A weak delivery record. The Housing Delivery Test 2025 counted 1,015 homes built against 3,505 needed over three years, a result of 29%.

The need for homes is plain, and national policy treats it as evidenced, but most of the open land that could meet it is Green Belt. For most fields the questions are whether the land is grey belt and whether the new plan includes it.

Thurrock's adopted plan is its Core Strategy and Policies for Management of Development. The council's core strategy page records that it was first adopted in December 2011 and updated in January 2015, after a focused review checked it against the national framework of the time.

Policy CSSP1 set the housing requirement: at least 18,500 homes between 2001 and 2021, and then 4,750 homes for the five years from 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2026. Those figures have now run their course. The plan is also 11 years old counted from its last update, and national policy replaces the housing requirement of any plan more than five years old with the government's standard method.

The core strategy put more than 60% of Thurrock in the Green Belt; the March 2025 timetable says 70%. Neither shows how its share was measured, so the safe reading is that almost any open field in the borough is covered.

The council consulted on its Initial Proposals from December 2023 to February 2024 and opened a call for sites in February 2025. Its Housing Land Availability Assessment of October 2025 assessed 238 sites and found 144 of them suitable, available and achievable, with room for 50,128 homes between them, far more than the plan needs.

The plan went to cabinet on 26 August 2026. The cabinet report sets a housing figure of 28,880 homes to 2044, set to reflect the high level of economic growth projected for Thurrock, against a March 2025 standard method figure of 21,540, so the plan aims about a third higher than the government's baseline. It concludes that "there will be some release of Green Belt necessary". The main building blocks it names are:

• The existing towns, in four plan areas running from Aveley and Purfleet-on-Thames in the west to Stanford-le-Hope and Corringham in the east, plus rural Thurrock.
• A new settlement at West Horndon of 10,000 homes within Thurrock, which the report says could form part of a wider new town of about 20,000 homes with land put forward in neighbouring Brentwood and Basildon.
• A second new settlement north of the A13 of 5,000 homes.
• Tiered affordable housing. 40% on greenfield Green Belt or grey belt sites and 25% on previously developed land in the Green Belt; 30% on other greenfield sites and 10% on other previously developed land; 35% to 50% on the strategic allocations.

Why 31 December 2026 Matters

The report explains that the plan can be finished under the existing rules only if it is submitted to the Secretary of State no later than 31 December 2026, and that if it misses that date "it will not be able to proceed further as it stands". The stages the council has set out are:

The consultation page calls this the last stage for comments before the plan goes to the Planning Inspectorate, and our guide to plan stages explains what a representation needs to show.

The Housing Delivery Test 2025 was published on 17 August 2026, and each yearly edition looks back over three years. At 29%, Thurrock sits below 75%, where national policy treats unmet need as evidenced, and below 85%, where the 20% buffer applies.

Waiting on a Newer Supply Statement

The latest statement has a base date of 1 April 2024, and we have found no later one. Any new one would be measured against the revised standard method, which the council's timetable put at 1,066 homes a year, with the 20% buffer for as long as the delivery result stays below 85%. We would not predict the outcome, but no published document suggests the borough is near five years.

Submission, Examination and a Withdrawn Reorganisation Decision

The timetable set out to cabinet in August 2026, shown in full above, runs from submission by 31 December 2026 to adoption in January to March 2028. Until then the core strategy and national policy decide applications, with the new plan gaining weight as it advances.

A government review launched on 7 September 2026 withdrew the reorganisation decisions for Essex, with local elections in May 2027 going ahead on existing council boundaries. For now Thurrock Council remains the planning authority and the body preparing the new plan.

What This Means for Timing

• Grey belt land with a strong case does not need to wait for the plan: need is already evidenced, and the West Horndon resolution shows how the council weighs it.
• Land the plan proposes to allocate is best supported with evidence before the examination, so the council can defend it as deliverable.