Selling Land in Hampshire

• It sits next to, or is well related to, an existing town or village.
• A safe access onto a public road is possible, even if it needs work.
• Most of the land is outside the highest flood risk zone.
• It is not covered by a strong designation such as a Site of Special Scientific Interest.
• It is about 2 acres or more, or part of a larger holding.
• Everyone who owns it is willing to consider one clear, agreed price.

If your land does not tick every box, ask anyway. Many of the sites we take on have a problem to solve, whether that is access, drainage, a tenancy or an awkward boundary, and solving those problems is our job.

1. A first conversation. You call us or send the form on this page. We need only your postcode, your name and a phone number or email.
2. A free desktop review. Within a few days we look at your land, the planning position in Hampshire and the routes open to it, and tell you plainly whether it suits us. The review is free and confidential, with no obligation.
3. Heads of terms and the option agreement. If it suits, we agree a price with you in writing, then the option agreement itself. We contribute to your solicitor's and land agent's fees, so it costs you nothing to get it done properly.
4. The planning work, at our cost. We pay for the surveys, the design, the planning application and any appeal. You carry on farming, grazing or letting the land as you do now.
5. Completion. If planning 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.

How selling land for development works, step by step gives the detail of each stage and how long it usually takes.

Nutrient Neutrality

Since 2019, Natural England has advised that new homes in parts of the Solent area should be nutrient neutral, because nitrogen from farmland and waste water is harming the protected harbours. In the Itchen catchment phosphorus is counted too, and the west of the New Forest district drains to the Hampshire Avon, where phosphorus is the issue. New homes rely on mitigation credits bought from schemes that take farmland out of intensive use. That adds cost, and it can make a scheme slower, but it is now a known cost rather than a block. The Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 allows Natural England to set up Environmental Delivery Plans, which housebuilders pay into instead of arranging their own mitigation, and nutrients are among the first issues it is working on.

National Parks and National Landscapes

The New Forest and South Downs are National Parks, with the highest level of landscape protection. The North Wessex Downs cover the chalk hills in the north of the county, Cranborne Chase reaches into the far west of the New Forest district, and Chichester Harbour National Landscape takes in the eastern side of Hayling Island and the coast near Emsworth. Major development inside these areas is only allowed in exceptional circumstances, and land in their setting is judged on its effect on views and character.

Protected Heaths and Coast

In the north east, the Thames Basin Heaths Special Protection Area means new homes in Hart and Rushmoor need Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace (SANG) and a payment towards managing visitors. Along the Solent, new homes near the coast pay towards managing recreational pressure on the protected shoreline and its birds. Inside Southampton both this payment and the nitrogen offset are asked of every new home, wherever in the city it stands.

Chalk Valleys, Groundwater and a Tidal Coast

The Test, Itchen, Meon, Hamble and Avon all run south to the coast, and the Loddon and Blackwater drain the north east towards the Thames. The chalk valleys are prone to groundwater flooding after long wet winters, which is not always obvious from the surface. On the coast, tidal flood risk affects parts of Hayling Island, Gosport and Lymington. The sequential test is explained in our flood risk guide.

Gaps Between Settlements

South Hampshire is densely settled, and councils there use gap policies to stop towns such as Fareham, Stubbington and Gosport from merging. These are local policies rather than Green Belt, and they are weighed against housing need, which matters more where delivery is below 75% or supply short of five years.

Most Hampshire sites meet at least one of these, and the order in which we check them, nutrients first in the south and SANG first in the north east, is set by where the land drains and how close it lies to the heaths.

Six Hampshire councils, the two cities among them, are below 75%, and almost none of the county is Green Belt. That combination gives good edge-of-settlement land in Fareham, Gosport, New Forest and Test Valley a stronger route than it had before, as long as the site itself works. Portsmouth is different: its constraints evidence finds the vast majority of the city already developed, so the useful land there is mostly in use already and judged under policy S4. Southampton, at 30%, is in the same position, developed for the most part up to its boundary and with no farmland inside it. The routes we use are:

1. A planning application under policy S5. Below 75%, unmet need is treated as evidenced; where supply is short, the shortfall is evidence to weigh. Land that adjoins a town or larger village, with good access and no overriding constraint, can be put forward now. Inside settlements, policy S4 leans towards approval.
2. Local plan allocation. Gosport and Havant have published new draft plans, Southampton replaced its City Vision draft with a new Southampton Local Plan begun on 26 June 2026, and every council will be preparing plans under the new system. Each stage is covered in our guide to calls for sites.
3. Nutrient and green space solutions. Early work on nutrient mitigation, and SANG where the heaths apply, makes a site easier to approve and easier to deliver.
4. Previously developed land. Old yards, depots and redundant farm buildings, which national policy supports inside and outside settlements.
5. Sites near stations. National policy now supports higher density homes within walking distance of well-connected stations, depending on the station and its service.

A low delivery score opens a door, but it does not guarantee planning. Access, drainage, nutrients and landscape still have to be answered properly, and that is where the evidence we pay for makes the difference.