Selling Land in Hart

• Fields that adjoin Fleet, Church Crookham, Hook, Yateley or Hartley Wintney and share a boundary with existing homes.
• Land more than 400 metres from the heaths, within the catchment of a SANG with room left.
• Larger holdings, typically 20 acres upwards, where some fields could be set aside as SANG for homes on the others.
• Former commercial or industrial land with lawful buildings or hardstanding.
• Sites within walking distance of Fleet, Hook or Winchfield station.

Heathland mitigation, ecology and access all have to be settled before an application, and we pay for that work in full. The option price is agreed at the outset, above the land's current value, and you carry on using the land. If permission is not secured, the land stays yours and you owe nothing. The how it works page walks through each step.

• 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 adopted plan set a requirement of 423 homes a year from 2014 to 2032, made up of 382 for Hart's own needs and 41 towards Surrey Heath's unmet need. Hart beat it comfortably. The council's monitoring report for 2024/25 records an average of 525 homes a year from 2014 to 2025, 1,120 more than the plan required over that time.

Then the plan passed its fifth anniversary on 30 April 2025. From 1 May 2025 national policy measured supply against the standard method instead, which the December 2024 changes had raised to 750 homes a year and which later data put at 771. The supply statement at 1 April 2025 sets out the result:

The gap is about 2,350 homes. The council accepts that on the plan's figure of 423 a year it would still have five years. Building has also slowed. Completions fell from 574 in 2022/23 to 434 and then 170 in 2024/25, the lowest year since the plan period began.

What a Shortfall Does for Land Outside the Settlements

Hart's adopted plan contains no Green Belt policy. Beyond the settlement boundaries, policy SS1 allows other housing only where it must be in the countryside, under policy NBE1, with rural exception schemes as a separate route. The shortfall changes how that is weighed. Policy S5 of the national framework, as revised in August 2026, treats a supply under five years as evidence that housing need is going unmet, opening a route for homes past a settlement boundary. It is not automatic: the site must read as part of the town or village next door, and local roads, schools and drainage need the capacity. Inside the boundaries of Fleet, Hook, Yateley and the other settlements, policy S4 applies instead, leaning towards approval and allowing refusal only where the harm would substantially outweigh the benefits. In Hart there is one more hurdle, which the next section explains.

The 2020 plan allocated a single strategic site: Hartland Village, about 54 hectares of previously developed land east of Fleet, for around 1,500 homes with a primary school and a neighbourhood centre. Permission came in July 2018, 312 homes were finished by March 2025, and the supply statement counts 529 more within five years. The other large contributors are land north of Netherhouse Copse, allowed on appeal in 2017 and since extended to 528 homes, and Watery Lane at Church Crookham, now under construction.

The New Settlement the Inspector Removed

The council submitted its plan with a policy, SS3, for a new settlement in an area of search around Murrell Green and Winchfield. The inspector's report of February 2020 deleted it, finding that the sustainability appraisal had not tested reasonable alternatives, and that a significant parcel across the middle of the area was neither owned by nor available to those putting the scheme forward. The plan itself records a 230-home gap in its final year, left for a review to fill.

Shapley Heath

The council then ran its own garden community project, Shapley Heath. It was curtailed in November 2021 when government funding fell short of the level the council had been led to expect, and its ten baseline reports were kept for the plan review. It is not a live project.

Surrey Heath's five-year supply statement still reduces its own target by the 41 homes a year that Hart's plan takes on up to 2032.

With a single strategic allocation and no new settlement in the adopted plan, most land offered for sale in Hart is unallocated, which is why the supply position and SANG count for more here than any allocation map.

The council's plan timetable, updated on 23 September 2026, shows the Hart Local Plan 2044 moving at pace under the new plan-making system. A scoping consultation ran from 27 May to 19 June 2026, and the council published its Gateway 1 self-assessment on 23 September 2026. The stages ahead:

The call for sites stays open, and the council says land submitted by 5 June 2026 will appear in the land availability assessment published with the October consultation. The form has no closing date, so land can still be put forward for the stages that follow. For what happens at each stage, see our guide to the local plan stages.

A Supply on the Standard Method, and the North Hampshire Merger Set Aside

Supply is where Hart is exposed. The statement at 1 April 2025 was published in December 2025, alongside the monitoring report. It still counted one month at the plan's figure; the next will rest on the standard method throughout. Until the 2044 plan allocates land, a well placed site keeps the weight a shortfall brings.

The delivery test is annual, and the Housing Delivery Test 2025 was published on 17 August 2026. At 137%, Hart faces none of the test's consequences. The next window loses 2022/23, when 574 homes were built, and gains 2025/26. We will not guess the score, but a result below 95% would call for an action plan, and below 85% would add a 20% buffer to a supply already well short.

Reorganisation is off the table for now. In March 2026 the government decided that Hart, Rushmoor and Basingstoke and Deane should merge into a North Hampshire council from 1 April 2028. Fresh legal advice led ministers to withdraw it on 7 September 2026, and the May 2027 elections will be held on existing boundaries. Hart remains the council writing its plan.

Well Placed Land With SANG Now, Open Land for the October Consultation

• Land that sits well against a town or village, with SANG in reach, can be looked at for an application now, while the shortfall carries weight.
• Larger or more open land is better aimed at the October 2026 consultation and the proposed plan in 2027.
• Not sure which applies? Our free review starts there.