Selling Land in Test Valley

• Fields on the edge of Andover or Romsey that sit next to existing or newly built neighbourhoods.
• Land beside the larger villages, particularly in the south where North Baddesley, Valley Park and Nursling and Rownhams have good links to Southampton.
• Sites clear of the river flood plains and of known groundwater problems.
• Land with a safe access onto a road that can take the traffic.
• Old farmyards, workshops, stables and other land that already carries lawful buildings or a hard surface.
• Bigger farms where one part could take homes and another could supply the green space and nitrogen offsetting they need.

Smaller sites can work too. Our page on paddocks and small sites explains what makes a modest plot viable, and how our agreements work sets out who does what at each stage.

• 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 treats the borough as two housing markets. The north looks to Andover. The south is treated as part of the wider South Hampshire sub-region, with its own pressures and protections.

Land next to the adopted strategic sites often has roads, drainage and services close by that did not exist when the plan was written, which can make the next field along a more straightforward proposition.

With the borough below 75%, national policy S5 treats unmet housing need as established. Land outside a settlement boundary can then be approved if it is physically well related to the town or village, the numbers can be served by roads, schools and drainage, and the harm does not substantially outweigh the benefits. With no Green Belt anywhere in Test Valley, the route is available almost everywhere outside the protected landscapes.

The local gaps are the main counterweight. They are local policies, not national ones, and they exist to stop places merging. In December 2023 consultants Stephenson Halliday reviewed all nine for the council, including a ninth between Southampton and Eastleigh, and made gap by gap recommendations for the new plan. Some, such as Andover to Abbotts Ann, were judged to have a strong sense of separation worth keeping; for others, such as Andover, Weyhill and the Pentons, the report suggested amending the boundary. Gap land is therefore not ruled out, but a scheme in one has to show that the separation between places survives, usually through the layout, planting and the amount of land kept open.

Away from the gaps, the most common questions on a Test Valley site are about landscape and views across the chalk valleys, access from narrow rural lanes, and how the land drains. We pay for the reports that answer them.

An owner selling a field outside Andover or Romsey that lies clear of the nine local gaps therefore starts from a strong position under national policy.

• The next delivery result. The Housing Delivery Test is published once a year; the Housing Delivery Test 2025, published on 17 August 2026, covers April 2022 to March 2025. The next edition will drop the oldest of those years and take in 2025/26. A better result would not on its own shut out edge of settlement schemes, because a borough without a five-year supply still has evidence of unmet need. A result below 75% keeps both arguments running.
• The next supply statement. Behind the figure of 2.54 years sits the council's January 2026 Housing Implementation Strategy, which set 2,489 deliverable homes against a five-year requirement of 4,898: the standard method's 933 homes a year plus a 5% buffer. National policy calls for a 20% buffer where the delivery test result is below 85%, so while the result stands at 64% the next statement is due to use the larger buffer, which raises the bar the council has to clear. It has not said when the April 2026 position will follow.
• The first dates under the new system. Since the July vote, the Local Plan page has given no timetable for the first formal stage. When one appears, it will be the earliest reliable signal of when fresh allocations could return.

Valley Park and Nursling Stay With Test Valley for Now

Under the decision since set aside, most of Test Valley would have joined Winchester, New Forest and East Hampshire in a Mid-Hampshire council from 1 April 2028, with Chilworth, Nursling, Rownhams and Valley Park going to South West Hampshire. On 7 September 2026 the government withdrew that decision for Hampshire and the wider Solent area pending a review. Owners around Valley Park and Nursling can set aside the question of which new authority would judge their land: Test Valley Borough Council remains the planning authority, and the restarted plan is its own.

With no timetable given for the restarted plan as of September 2026, nothing is yet lined up to replace today's policies. Land that relates well to Andover, Romsey or a key service centre is decided on the rules in force, and those are the rules we prepare the evidence for.