Selling Land in Gloucester

• Yards, garages, workshops and commercial buildings in Tredworth, Barton, Kingsholm and elsewhere in the city.
• Empty or underused land in and around the city centre.
• Larger gardens and backland plots with a sensible access.
• Undeveloped pockets inside the city that sit above the floodplain.
• Land within reach of Gloucester station.
• Land on the city edge, where we first check which council it belongs to.

If most of your land sits in the Severn floodplain, the prospects are narrower, and our review will tell you so without dressing it up. Where a site does suit homes, we take on the whole planning process, from the first survey to any appeal, at our own cost.

• 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 City Plan records that the Joint Core Strategy expected about 35% of Gloucester's homes to be built in urban extensions in Tewkesbury borough, with further development south of the city in Stroud district. The council's 2025 land supply statement still counts four of those Tewkesbury allocations towards the city's need, Innsworth and Twigworth to the north and South Churchdown and North Brockworth to the east, and expects 732 homes from them in its five years. The Strategic and Local Plan will set the next round.

At its second stage of consultation, which ran to 16 January 2026, the three councils put their combined need at about 43,000 homes, including around 14,000 for Gloucester. Local reporting in April 2026 expected the final submission in October or November. The partnership's current timetable now has councillors approving the pre-submission plan in October 2026, a final consultation running from late October or early November into December, and submission to the government in December 2026.

Why the Shortfall Is Quoted as 25,000 and as 23,000

Two figures circulate for the land still to be found. In December 2025, local reporting of the consultation said existing permissions and allocations covered 18,000 homes, leaving land for 25,000 more to be found. By April 2026, the Raikes Journal put the sites found so far at about 20,000 and the shortfall at about 23,000. Both work from the same total of roughly 43,000, so the likeliest explanation is that more supply was counted between the two stages as permissions and evidence came in. The direction of travel is the same in both: the same April report says the vast majority of the new homes will be built in Tewkesbury borough because Cheltenham and Gloucester do not have enough land.

How each of those councils is performing is set out on our Gloucestershire page.

If you are selling land on the edge of the city, the first question is therefore which council the field falls in, because land across the boundary in Tewkesbury or Stroud is judged by that council's policies and figures, not Gloucester's.

The Severn defines Gloucester. The City Plan describes the river running along the western edge of the city with various tributaries running into it, and says that as a result some areas are subject to flood risk, particularly to the north, west and south west. It also plans for a wetter future, citing projections of winters up to 42% wetter with more frequent flooding, and its policy E4 requires sustainable drainage in new development. Alney Island, on the river, is one of the green spaces the plan values for leisure.

Where land is in Flood Zone 2 or 3, the council first applies the sequential test: could these homes go on land at lower risk? In a city with so little spare land, layout does much of the work: homes on the higher ground, gardens, open space and drainage on the lower parts, and a safe route in and out during a flood. Our guide to flood risk explains how the tests are applied.

The first thing to watch is the delivery result. A new Housing Delivery Test arrives once a year. The Housing Delivery Test 2025, released on 17 August 2026, averages April 2022 to March 2025; its successor will keep two of those years and add 2025/26. In a city, a change in the result matters less than in a rural district. Crossing 75% would remove one of the two grounds for the unmet need route under policy S5, which mostly helps the few undeveloped pockets, though the supply shortfall set out below would remain the other until the council can show five years again. Either way policy S4 is untouched, and S4 is what supports homes on the yards, garages and backland plots that make up most Gloucester sites.

Land Supply and the Joint Plan

The council's latest land supply statement, published in October 2025, puts the city at 3.1 years at 31 March 2025. The Joint Core Strategy turned five in December 2022, so the statement measures supply against the government's standard method as revised in December 2024:

A year earlier the 2024 statement had found 4.7 years against the older method's 663 homes a year, so the fall owes much to the higher need figure. The buffer is the next thing to watch. National policy calls for 20% rather than 5% where delivery falls below 85%, and the city's 63% in the Housing Delivery Test 2025 is below that line, so the next statement is likely to measure against a larger requirement. Being short of five years gives the city a second, separate ground for treating need as unmet under policy S5, though never an automatic one. A site still has to sit well against the built-up area and be capable of being served, and in Gloucester the floodplain rules out much of what is left.

The joint plan is heading for submission on the timing described above; an independent examination follows, and only on adoption would the City Plan and the Joint Core Strategy fall away.

Reorganisation is on hold as well. Gloucestershire learned in July 2026 that its county, city and district councils were to become one. On 7 September the local government minister put that decision under review, and the May 2027 elections will be held on the existing boundaries. For now the city council keeps its planning role, and the boundary with Tewkesbury and Stroud still decides whose rules apply to land on the edge.

In practice, an urban site in Gloucester does not need to wait for any of these. The events worth timing around are the joint plan for edge land, and, for a site in the few open pockets left, the next delivery result.