Hampshire council area
Selling Land in Portsmouth
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Portsmouth is an island city with almost no open land, a delivery result of 11% and a plan adopted in January 2012. Its replacement plan was submitted in March 2026, and a call for sites for the plan after it opened in September 2026. Useful land here is mostly already in use: yards, garages, older commercial premises and large gardens.
- We pay for the planning, at our own cost and risk
- Your price is agreed up front, in writing
- If planning is refused, you keep your land and owe nothing
In short
We buy land in Portsmouth and welcome land of every kind there: fields and paddocks, inherited land, old yards and larger holdings.
Portsmouth built only 11% of the homes it needed in the government's latest count, and below 75% national policy treats the need for more homes as shown. It can also show only 2.4 years of the five years of housing land national policy expects. So a well placed field next to a town or village can make its case now, not only through the local plan, though each site is judged on its merits. Land in the Green Belt faces stricter national tests. Its local plan dates from January 2012, and a new one was submitted for examination in March 2026.
We look for 2 acres or more next to, or well related to, a town or village, with a road frontage or a way to get one.
The next step is a free, confidential desktop review. We tell you which route, if any, suits your land, with no obligation.
Portsmouth in Figures
The government's latest figures for the council, its latest five-year housing land supply, and where its local plan stands.
Housing Delivery Test 2025
11%
Below 75%: treated as having evidenced unmet housing need under national policy S5.
Five-year housing land supply
2.4 years
Short of five years: national policy treats this as evidence of unmet housing need. Position at 31 March 2025, measured against the standard method, 1,021 homes a year, plus a 20% buffer. Stated by Portsmouth City Council.
Checked sourceHomes built against homes needed
308
of 2,702 needed, April 2022 to March 2025
Most recent strategic plan adopted
January 2012
More than five years old, so its housing figures are usually replaced by the government's standard method.
New plan progress
Latest step
Portsmouth Local Plan 2025 to 2040 submitted for examination on 18 March 2026, with three inspectors appointed on 23 March 2026; the inspectors' programme of September 2026 placed hearings between 6 October and 27 November 2026; the council's suggested main modifications of September 2026 would lower the target from 11,369 to 11,090 homes; the council gave notice of the Future Portsmouth Plan under the new system in July 2026, with scoping and a call for sites from 29 September to 2 November 2026, and its timetable of 10 September 2026 gives submission in August 2028 and adoption in April 2029
Checked source
See how Portsmouth compares with the other 166 councils we cover
Sources: Housing Delivery Test: 2025 measurement, MHCLG, published 17 August 2026; Local plans: monitoring progress, Planning Inspectorate, August 2026. Local plans move quickly, so always check the council's own website for the latest position.
The Land We Look for in Portsmouth
- Builders' yards, depots, garages and workshops in Fratton, North End, Copnor, Hilsea and Cosham, especially where the business is moving on.
- Older commercial or community buildings with land around them, such as halls, clubs and single-storey shops.
- Large rear gardens and backland in Drayton, Farlington and Cosham with a realistic access of their own.
- Sites close to the housing allocations at Tipner, Port Solent, Fratton Park and the city centre.
- Land within walking distance of one of the city's stations.
- Neighbouring plots whose owners are willing to put their land forward together.
In an island city the first questions are usually flood level, contamination from a previous use and how cars reach the site, and our desktop review answers them before anyone visits. Where we take a site on, every later report is at our cost, and the option price is fixed at the start, set higher than the site's current-use value. The yard or garden stays in your use until completion, and should permission not be secured it remains your property with nothing owed to us. The stages are on our how it works page.
The planning detail in full
An Island City That Stops at Portsdown Hill
Portsmouth City Council is a unitary council: it decides planning applications and writes the local plan for the whole city. Its constraints paper for the examination notes that the majority of the city sits on Portsea Island, separated from the mainland by Ports Creek. The island holds Southsea, Fratton, North End, Copnor, Milton, Eastney and Hilsea, and across the creek the city carries on to Cosham, Drayton, Farlington and Paulsgrove below Portsdown Hill.
- 11% in the Housing Delivery Test 2025. The government counted 308 homes against 2,702 required, the lowest result in Hampshire, so unmet need is treated as evidenced.
- 2.4 years of housing land. The council's own figure at 31 March 2025, against the standard method, 1,021 homes a year, plus a 20% buffer.
- A plan from 2012. The Portsmouth Plan, adopted in January 2012, is 14 years old, so the standard method has replaced its housing figure.
- Little open land. The council's constraints evidence says the vast majority of the city is already developed, and most of what remains open is valued public open space.
Demolitions and Nitrates Behind the Delivery Result
A result this low does not mean nothing was built. The test counts net additional homes, so demolitions are subtracted from completions, and in two of the three years measured the net figure came close to zero:
| Year | Homes required | Net homes counted by the government | What the council's documents say |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022/23 | 906 | about 9 | Leamington House and Horatia House, two tower blocks in Somerstown, were demolished, a loss of 277 homes. |
| 2023/24 | 899 | about 290 | The best year of the three, and still only about a third of the requirement. |
| 2024/25 | 897 | about 10 | No large scheme was completed, and student halls changed to educational use. |
| Three years | 2,702 | 308 | A result of 11%. |
The council's Housing Delivery Test action plan blames the 2022/23 figure largely on those 277 lost homes, and notes that the regeneration of Somerstown and North Southsea had so far consisted only of demolition. The council's monitoring report, compiled separately from the government's figures, gives 101 net homes for 2024/25 against the government's count of about 10, and puts the fall from 243 the year before mostly down to no large scale developments being completed. The two counts differ, but both show the same collapse, and it is the government's figure that decides the test.
The Nitrate Pause That Came First
The same action plan records that concerns about nitrate pollution in the Solent put applications on hold, and that from April 2019 to March 2020, apart from several exceptions, no residential consents were issued. The council expected nitrate mitigation to affect delivery for years to come, because the contributions it requires weigh on viability. It also cites low house prices, a supply of mainly brownfield sites where viability is harder, and allocations at Tipner and Port Solent yet to come forward. Even before the demolitions, the city built 296 homes in 2020/21 and 280 in 2021/22, against requirements of 569, a figure the government had reduced, and 823.
2.4 Years Now, and a Different Yardstick After Adoption
The council's Authority Monitoring Report for 2024/25, published in April 2026, states that the council does not have five years of housing land. It measures supply against the standard method, with a 20% buffer because the city has been below 85% on the delivery test for several years:
| Part of the calculation | Council's figure |
|---|---|
| Strategic sites and site allocations | 1,704 homes |
| Sites with planning permission, less 15% for schemes that do not go ahead | 708 homes |
| Other deliverable sites, with the same allowance | 136 homes |
| Windfall allowance for sites of under five homes | 395 homes |
| Total supply, 2025/26 to 2029/30 | 2,943 homes |
| Requirement: 1,021 homes a year for five years, plus a 20% buffer | 6,126 homes |
| Result | 2.4 years |
The supply is less than half the requirement, and almost 400 of those homes are expected from small sites alone.
The Council's Forecast for Adoption
Once the new plan is adopted, supply will be measured against the plan's own requirement instead. The council's hearing statement on housing land supply of September 2026 expects 3,589 deliverable homes for 2027/28 to 2031/32 against a requirement of 3,342 including a 20% buffer, which it puts at 5.37 years. That is the council's forecast, not a finding, and the inspectors will test it.
Until then, both measures point one way. Because Portsmouth sits under the 75% line, the August 2026 framework's policy S5 regards its unmet need as evidenced, and the supply shortfall adds evidence to be weighed rather than deciding anything automatically. Inside the city, policy S4 applies whatever the figures: development within a settlement should be approved unless its harm would substantially outweigh its benefits. As almost every useful site here is inside the city, S4 does most of the work.
Planning by Capacity: 2012 and the Plan at Examination
Portsmouth plans by what the city can hold rather than by need. The monitoring report records that the Portsmouth Plan of 2012 set a target of 7,117 net homes from 2009/10 to 2026/27, or 419 a year. For the plan now at examination, the constraints paper explains that the city would be unable to accommodate its full standard method figure, so the council took a capacity based approach instead.
The council's report to Full Council in November 2025 set need at 1,019 homes a year, or 15,285 over 2025 to 2040, against a plan target of 11,369, a shortfall of 3,916. Fareham has set aside 800 homes towards it, and the council's response to the inspectors records 148 from Winchester, leaving 2,968 still to be found. Winchester's own inspector's report puts that contribution at 150: both come from one agreement giving Portsmouth 30% of a 495-home allowance in the Winchester plan, which is 148.5 homes, and Portsmouth rounds it down. The difference is immaterial; what matters is that almost 3,000 homes were still unplaced, and the November 2025 report described talks with Havant, Gosport, Fareham and East Hampshire as ongoing. In September 2026 the council's suggested main modifications proposed lowering the target to 11,090, stepped at 562 homes a year to 2030 and 828 a year after. If the inspectors accept that, the gap widens further, and that gap is the strongest argument for every sound site inside the city.
| Site (policy) | Homes in the council's figures |
|---|---|
| Portsmouth City Centre (PLP6) | 3,458 to 4,158 |
| Tipner East (PLP4) | 1,056 |
| Tipner West (PLP3) | 1,000, with 25,000 square metres of employment space |
| Port Solent (PLP11) | 500 |
| Fratton Park and the Pompey Centre (PLP7) | 460, with 250 more safeguarded beyond 2040 |
| St James' and Langstone Campus (PLP8) | 417 |
| St John's College (PLP12) | 149 |
| Fraser Range (PLP13) | 134 |
Tipner West shows what the harbour demands. The council first planned between 814 and 1,250 homes there with up to 58,000 square metres of marine employment space, a scheme that needed the Secretary of State's opinion on whether imperative reasons of overriding public interest could justify its harm to the protected habitats. Both opinions, received in February and July 2025, were negative, and both were later withdrawn, the second on account of legal errors. The council then rewrote the allocation as about 1,000 homes and 25,000 square metres of employment space with no adverse effect on the protected sites, accepting that the planned marine employment hub cannot be provided in the city, and its suggested phasing has no homes there before 2030.
Harbours, Tides and Portsdown Hill
The council's constraints paper for the examination explains why the city cannot grow outwards:
- Protected harbours on both sides. Portsmouth Harbour is largely covered by a Special Protection Area, Langstone Harbour is part of the Chichester and Langstone Harbour Special Protection Area, and the Solent is also a Special Area of Conservation.
- Birds on dry land. Land that Brent geese and wading birds use is graded from Core Areas down to Low Use Sites, and the grading is part of how a site is judged.
- The sea. The majority of the city is susceptible to flooding from the sea, so flood risk is one of the first checks on most sites. Our flood risk guide explains the sequential test.
- Nitrates. New homes must not add to nutrient pollution in the Solent. Portsmouth has established schemes that developers pay into, so mitigation is provided off site rather than on each scheme.
- Portsdown Hill. The ridge is treated as unsuitable for significant development for its open space, landscape, archaeology, heritage and nature value.
None of this rules out a plot inside the city; it means the reports needed are known at the outset, and we pay for them.
Routes That Fit a City With No Fields to Spare
For land that is already part of the city, these are the routes in the order we usually look at them:
- An application under policy S4. Yards, garages, workshops, older shops with land behind and deep gardens with their own access are judged as development within a settlement, and with delivery at 11% the need for homes weighs heavily.
- The call for sites for the Future Portsmouth Plan. The council's call for sites opened on 29 September 2026 with a closing date of 2 November 2026. Larger sites, and those needing an allocation, belong there.
- Previously developed land on the council's registers. The action plan commits the council to updating its brownfield land register every year and its land availability assessment regularly.
- Land near a station. The August 2026 framework supports higher densities on land a short walk from a station with a good service.
- Edge land under policy S5. The city's few open edges are mostly open space, shore or Portsdown Hill, so S5 rarely applies, but we assess any site that genuinely adjoins the built-up area free of those constraints.
Our brownfield and yards page explains how we look at land already in use, and the guide to site submissions covers each stage of a plan.
Hearings at the Guildhall, and a Plan for 2045
The Examination Hearings
The inspectors' programme, revised in September 2026, placed the hearings at the Guildhall between 6 October and 27 November 2026, with housing need on 7 October, most of the allocated sites on 21 and 22 October and housing land supply on 26 November. Consultation on main modifications and the inspectors' report normally follow, with no dates published by the end of September 2026.
The Next Delivery Test and Monitoring Report
The Housing Delivery Test 2025 was published on 17 August 2026 and covers April 2022 to March 2025. The next edition drops 2022/23, the year of the tower block demolitions, and adds 2025/26, when the council recorded 316 completions. The result is the government's to publish, and we do not guess it. The supply figure comes from the April 2026 monitoring report, and the next report will move its base date on a year.
The Future Portsmouth Plan and Reorganisation
The council's timetable, in effect from 10 September 2026, gives 29 September to 2 November 2026 for scoping, 17 December 2026 for the first gateway self-assessment, May 2027 for consultation on content, August 2028 for submission and April 2029 for adoption. Once adopted, the plan now at examination stays in place until the Future Portsmouth Plan replaces it. On 7 September 2026 the government withdrew its reorganisation decisions for Hampshire after new legal advice and began a review, with the May 2027 elections on existing boundaries, so the city council remains the planning authority.
- Land inside the city can be looked at now, as the S4 case does not depend on either plan.
- Larger sites or land needing an allocation are best put into the call for sites, with evidence ready for the content consultation.
- Not sure which applies? Our free review starts there, and our Hampshire page covers the councils around the city.
Questions About Land in Portsmouth
I own a yard in Fratton that I rent out. Could it be worth more with planning?
It may be. A yard inside the city is judged under policy S4, and with delivery at 11% the need for homes weighs heavily. The case usually turns on flood level, access, neighbours and whether losing the business use is acceptable, and we test those first.
My house in Drayton has a very long garden. Could a home go at the end of it?
Sometimes, if there is a safe access that does not rely on someone else's land and the new home would not harm the neighbours' privacy. The nitrate payment applies to a single home too, and we pay it as part of the planning work.
Is my land on the slopes of Portsdown Hill worth putting forward?
Usually not for housing. The council's evidence treats the hill as unsuitable for significant development. Land already built on near the foot of the hill is a different question, and we will tell you plainly which applies.
Should I send my site to the call for sites that opened in September 2026?
For a larger site, or one that needs an allocation, yes: it is how the council learns about land for its next plan. A plot that already works under today's policies need not wait, and we can prepare either route at our cost.
Does the Tipner West decision affect land near the harbour?
It shows how closely schemes beside the protected harbours are tested. The council scaled Tipner West back to avoid harm to the protected sites, and harbourside land will be judged the same way.
What price will you pay for my land?
We agree a fixed price with you at the start, before any planning work begins, and it is set above what your land is worth today. We cannot name a figure before we have looked at your land, because it depends on the site itself: its size, its access, how many homes it could take and the costs that come off land value, such as affordable housing, road works and drainage. After the free desktop review we can talk about a price, and once agreed it is written into the agreement.
When would I be paid?
You receive the agreed price on completion, once planning permission has been secured. The agreement sets out the milestones along the way, and it continues while any planning application or appeal is being decided. Until completion you carry on using your land as you do now, and we pay for all of the planning. If permission is not granted, you keep your land and owe nothing.
Tell Us About Your Land in Portsmouth
It takes about two minutes. We only need your postcode, your name and a phone number or email; the rest helps us look properly.
- We reply within 2 working days, by phone or email, whichever you prefer.
- The desktop review is free and confidential, with no obligation.
- If we agree terms, we pay for all of the planning, which on a larger site can reach £300,000.
More in Hampshire
County overview
Selling Land in Hampshire
Selling land across Hampshire? We agree your price up front and pay for all the planning. If it fails, you keep your land and owe nothing.
Neighbouring council · Housing Delivery Test: 60%
Selling Land in Fareham
Selling land in Fareham? We agree your price up front and pay for all the planning. If it fails, you keep your land and owe nothing. Supply: 2.99 years.
Neighbouring council · Housing Delivery Test: 80%
Selling Land in Havant
Selling land in Havant? We agree your price up front and pay for all the planning. If it fails, you keep your land and owe nothing. Land supply: 1.3 years.
Neighbouring council · Housing Delivery Test: 174%
Selling Land in Winchester
Selling land in Winchester? We agree your price up front and pay for all the planning. If it fails, you keep your land and owe nothing. Supply: 5.5 years.
Housing Delivery Test: 25%
Selling Land in Gosport
Selling land in Gosport? We agree your price up front and pay for all the planning. If it fails, you keep your land and owe nothing. Supply: 1.87 years.
Housing Delivery Test: 48%
Selling Land in New Forest District
Selling land in New Forest? We agree your price up front and pay for all the planning. If it fails, you keep your land and owe nothing. Supply: 1.53 years.
Housing Delivery Test: 64%
Selling Land in Test Valley
Selling land in Test Valley? We agree your price up front and pay for all the planning. If it fails, you keep your land and owe nothing.
Housing Delivery Test: 94%
Selling Land in Basingstoke and Deane
Selling land in Basingstoke and Deane? We agree your price up front and pay for all the planning. If it fails, you keep your land and owe nothing.
Housing Delivery Test: 79%
Selling Land in East Hampshire
Selling land in East Hampshire? We agree your price up front and pay for all the planning. If it fails, you keep your land and owe nothing.
Housing Delivery Test: 94%
Selling Land in Eastleigh
Selling land in Eastleigh? We agree your price up front and pay for all the planning. If it fails, you keep your land and owe nothing. Supply: 4.2 years.
Housing Delivery Test: 137%
Selling Land in Hart
Selling land in Hart? We agree your price up front and pay for all the planning. If it fails, you keep your land and owe nothing. Land supply: 2.07 years.
Housing Delivery Test: 176%
Selling Land in Rushmoor
Selling land in Rushmoor? We agree your price up front and pay for all the planning. If it fails, you keep your land and owe nothing. Supply: 4.74 years.
Sources
- Portsmouth City Council: Authority Monitoring Report 2024/25 (April 2026)
- Portsmouth City Council: Housing Delivery Test Action Plan 2024/25 (2025)
- Portsmouth City Council: Constraints Topic Paper (February 2026)
- Portsmouth City Council: Full Council report on the Pre-Submission Local Plan Addendum (November 2025)
- Portsmouth City Council: Council response to the Inspectors' Initial Questions, PCC06 (July 2026)
- Portsmouth City Council: Submission Suggested Main Modifications, version 2.0 (September 2026)
- Portsmouth City Council: Matter 14 hearing statement, housing land supply (September 2026)
- Portsmouth Local Plan examination: Initial Hearing Programme, version 2 (September 2026)
- Portsmouth City Council: Future Portsmouth Plan, local plan timetable (September 2026)
- Portsmouth City Council: Future Portsmouth Plan, call for sites (September 2026)
- Winchester City Council: Inspector's report on the examination of the Winchester District Local Plan (2026)
- GOV.UK: Review of local government reorganisation launched (September 2026)
Figures on this page come from the Housing Delivery Test 2025 (published 17 August 2026) and the Planning Inspectorate's local plan monitoring to August 2026, with newer plan milestones checked on 24 September 2026. We update the page when new results or plan milestones are published. Planning positions change quickly, so always check the council's own website before relying on it.