Hampshire council area

Selling Land in Test Valley

Test Valley has no Green Belt, a local plan adopted in January 2016, and a housing figure that rose by 78% when national policy changed. Its replacement plan was switched to the new national system in July 2026, and the council has acknowledged it cannot show a five-year supply of housing land.

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Test Valley at a Glance

The borough follows the River Test from the chalk country around Andover down towards Southampton. The adopted plan names Andover and Romsey as its two major centres, and North Baddesley, Valley Park, Chilworth, and Nursling and Rownhams as key service centres on the northern side of Southampton. Between the two towns lies a large rural area of farmland and villages such as Stockbridge, Kings Somborne and the Wallops.

64% in the Housing Delivery Test 2025. The council delivered 1,041 homes against a requirement of 1,627, which puts it below the 75% line.
A plan built for lower numbers. The Revised Local Plan 2011 to 2029 planned for at least 10,584 homes over eighteen years.
A much larger target now. The council's 2025 draft plan used a minimum of 934 homes a year, up from 524, or 15,878 over seventeen years.
No five-year land supply. The council's review of its plan, approved in April 2026, recorded the lack of a five-year supply that followed the change in the government's housing figure.
No Green Belt. When councillors backed the principle of a new green belt for south Hampshire in 2021, the council's own announcement made clear the borough had none. Countryside is protected by settlement boundaries and nine local gaps instead.

Taken together, these make Test Valley one of the more open districts in southern England for well-placed land on the edge of its towns and larger villages, provided the local gaps, the chalk rivers and the habitat rules can be answered.

Test Valley in Figures

The government's latest figures for the council, and where its local plan stands.

Housing Delivery Test 2025
64%
Below 75%: treated as having evidenced unmet housing need under national policy S5.
Homes built against homes needed
1,041
of 1,627 needed, April 2022 to March 2025
Most recent strategic plan adopted
January 2016
More than five years old, so its housing figures are usually replaced by the government's standard method.
New plan progress
Updated
Draft Local Plan 2042: revised draft consultation June to September 2025
Checked source

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.

North and South: Two Different Land Markets

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.

Topic	Northern Test Valley	Southern Test Valley
Main places	Andover, Charlton, Abbotts Ann, the Clatfords, Weyhill and the rural villages	Romsey, North Baddesley, Valley Park, Chilworth, Nursling and Rownhams
Homes planned to 2029	6,444 in the Andover housing market area, plus 648 in rural Test Valley	3,492 in Southern Test Valley
Adopted strategic sites	Picket Twenty, Picket Piece, East Anton and Augusta Park	Whitenap at Romsey, Hoe Lane at North Baddesley, Abbotswood and Upton
Local gaps	Four gaps around Andover, towards Anna Valley and Upper Clatford, Enham Alamein and Smannell, Abbotts Ann, and Weyhill and the Pentons	Gaps between Romsey and North Baddesley, North Baddesley and Valley Park, North Baddesley and Chilworth, Ampfield and Chandler's Ford, and Southampton and Eastleigh
Habitat rules	Solent nitrogen for most of the area; River Avon rules around Shipton Bellinger and Cholderton	Solent nitrogen, New Forest recreational mitigation, Bird Aware Solent near the coast, and phosphorus at Valley Park

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.

The Local Plan 2042 and the July 2026 Restart

The council has been preparing a replacement plan since 2018, through five rounds of consultation. The last, a revised Regulation 18 draft consulted on from 27 June to 5 September 2025, was rewritten after the December 2024 change to national policy raised the borough's figure by 78%. It proposed a long list of new sites, among them Bere Hill (about 1,400 homes) and Finkley Down Farm (about 1,150) at Andover, Halterworth at Romsey (about 1,070) and Velmore Farm at Valley Park (about 1,070).

On 22 July 2026 Full Council agreed to stop taking that plan forward under the old regulations and to start under the new gateway system. The sites in the 2025 draft now carry little weight in decisions unless a new plan takes them forward.

Why the Published Timetable No Longer Applies

Anyone reading the council's June 2025 consultation leaflet will find a clear timetable: a final draft plan in spring or summer 2026, submission in autumn 2026, examination over winter and spring 2027 and adoption in autumn 2027. None of those dates now stands. The council's Local Plan page, updated after the July 2026 vote, explains the switch by factors beyond its control that complicated the plan's production, and gives no new dates for the next consultation. The leaflet is not wrong so much as overtaken. For a landowner, the practical reading is simple: the need figure and the missing five-year supply that drove the 2025 draft have not gone away, but the allocations that would have answered them are now years off.

What the Restart Means for a Landowner

Two things follow. First, it will be some time before any new allocations exist, so a site that can stand on its own merits is usually better put forward as a planning application now. Second, the council's leader said in 2025 that without a new plan the borough is open to speculative applications it would struggle to resist. That is the council recognising, in its own words, how much weight national policy now gives to housing need here.

If you would like to know how a council weighs land when it restarts a plan, our explainer on the call for sites process covers it.

Settlement Edges and the Local Gaps

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.

Chalk Rivers, Nutrients and Bats

The council applies Solent nitrogen neutrality to all of the borough that drains through the Test, the Itchen and their tributaries to the protected harbours and estuaries of the Solent. That leaves out only a small area around Shipton Bellinger and Cholderton, so the rule reaches new homes nearly everywhere in Test Valley, not only near the coast.

Nitrogen. New homes must not add to the nutrient load reaching the Solent. The council's guidance allows this to be met by a financial contribution or a bespoke mitigation package, and credit schemes typically use farmland taken out of intensive use.
Phosphorus. At Valley Park and the Hocombe area of Ampfield, homes served by the Chickenhall treatment works also need phosphorus mitigation for the River Itchen, while around Shipton Bellinger and Cholderton the River Avon rules apply instead.
Mottisfont bats. A 7.5 kilometre zone around the Mottisfont Bats Special Area of Conservation protects the feeding grounds of barbastelle bats, so hedgerows and tree lines on sites in that zone need careful survey.
Recreation. Parts of the borough contribute towards the New Forest and, within 5.6 kilometres of the Solent's protected sites, towards Bird Aware Solent.
Flooding. We check each field against the Environment Agency flood maps and for groundwater, which matters on chalk. Our guide to flood risk on development land explains how the sequential test works.

None of these is unusual for Hampshire, and all can be dealt with. On a larger holding, part of the land may even provide the nitrogen mitigation for the homes on the rest.

What We Look for in Test Valley

Fields on the edge of Andover or Romsey that sit next to existing or recently 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.

Test Valley Landowners Ask

My field was in the 2025 draft plan. What happens to it now?

The draft is not going forward in that form, so the proposed allocation now carries little weight on its own. The evidence behind it still exists, though, and it can support a planning application or a submission to the new plan. We would look at which makes more sense for your field.

My land is in a local gap. Is there any point?

Sometimes. Gaps are local policies that are being reviewed, and a scheme that keeps the places visibly apart can be acceptable. A field right in the narrowest part of a gap is harder, and we will say so plainly.

Do I need to buy nitrogen credits before anything happens?

No. Mitigation is part of the development costs, which we deal with. If your holding is large enough, some of your own land might provide it.

My land was once put forward and turned down. Is it worth another look?

Often, yes. The yearly figure the council must plan for has risen by 78% since its 2024 draft, and the local gaps are themselves under review. A field rejected against the old numbers can look quite different against the new ones.

The council says it has no five-year supply. Is that the same as the 64% result?

They are separate measures that point the same way. The 64% result looks back at homes built, and the land supply looks ahead at sites ready to build. Both count as evidence of unmet need under national policy.

Tell Us About Your Land in Test Valley

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Sources

We update this page when new Housing Delivery Test results or local plan milestones are published. Planning positions change quickly, so always check the council's own website before relying on it.