Selling Land in Herefordshire

• 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 Herefordshire 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.

One River, Two Countries

The Wye rises in central Wales and runs for about 250 kilometres to the Severn Estuary, so the river that passes through Hereford and Ross-on-Wye is managed by bodies on both sides of the border. The government's River Wye Action Plan of April 2024 attributes between 72% and 74% of the phosphate in the river to agricultural land, 21% to 23% to regulated waste water discharges and 1% to 2% to storm overflows. It cites research finding that most of the surplus phosphorus added to the catchment's soils each year comes from livestock manure, especially from poultry.

That plan was aimed at farming rather than housing. It proposed rules, subject to consultation, on where manure from permitted poultry farms may go, offered up to £35 million in grants for on-farm manure combustors and recorded more than 500 Environment Agency farm inspections in the catchment since April 2023.

Where the Phosphate Rules Apply to New Homes

In November 2025 the Environment Agency and Natural England published a joint Diffuse Water Pollution Plan for the Wye. It names the Lugg catchment in England as the area under nutrient neutrality requirements, because of excessive phosphorus levels, and records that the main Wye was not failing its water quality targets at the 2022 interim assessment, although its water plants, salmon and crayfish were in decline. A full assessment of the Wye began in 2024, and the plan looked for its results during 2026. It also proposed a study of whether a Water Protection Zone under section 93 of the Water Resources Act 1991, a tool that allows bespoke controls on land use and polluting activities in a defined area, would help, and left any further step to depend on the two bodies' capacity.

On the Welsh side, the Welsh Government issued an interim planning policy statement on development in protected river catchments on 5 August 2025, setting out pathways through which development can still proceed, with affordable housing a particular aim. Powys and Monmouthshire follow that Welsh policy, while land in Herefordshire is judged under the English national framework.

Two National Landscapes

The Wye Valley National Landscape covers the lower Wye Valley south of Hereford and crosses into Wales. Herefordshire, Forest of Dean and Monmouthshire are its planning authorities, and its partnership also advises Gloucestershire County Council. Its planning team normally comments only on significant or major schemes likely to cause real harm, while the councils apply their own policies to conserve and enhance its natural beauty.

The Malvern Hills National Landscape covers 105 square kilometres across parts of Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire, and was first designated in 1959. Almost all public bodies have a legal duty to seek to further the purposes of conserving and enhancing its natural beauty, and the law asks that account be taken of the needs of agriculture, forestry and other rural industries.

No Green Belt, and Floodplains to Check

The government's Green Belt statistics, published on 22 October 2026, place England's Green Belt around sixteen urban cores, and none of them is in Herefordshire: the nearest surround Birmingham, and Cheltenham and Gloucester. At 31 March 2026, 177 of England's 296 local authorities had some Green Belt, which leaves 119 with none. Flood risk is the more common physical limit, because the Wye, the Lugg and their tributaries have wide floodplains, and the developable part of a field is normally kept to Flood Zone 1. Our flood risk guide explains how a site is tested.

If you are thinking of selling farmland in Herefordshire for development, the river your land drains to matters more than the national debate about the Wye: outside the Lugg catchment a field usually faces the ordinary tests, while inside it, around Leominster and across much of the north of the county, the phosphate solution has to be in place before homes can be approved.

Herefordshire's delivery result is above 75%, so unmet need is not simply assumed. The supply shortfall is what matters here: under policy S5 it counts as evidence of unmet need to be weighed, not an automatic finding, and it applies across the whole county because there is no Green Belt to close that route. The routes we look at are:

1. An application under policy S5. Land that sits well against Hereford, a market town or a larger village, with roads, schools and drainage that can cope, can be put forward now while the shortfall stands.
2. Policy S4 inside a settlement. A plot, paddock or yard inside a town or village should be approved unless the harm would substantially outweigh the benefits.
3. The Local Plan for 2025 to 2045. Larger holdings, especially near Hereford and in the western corridor, belong in the new plan, starting with the second call for sites tranche.
4. Barns and old yards. Redundant farm buildings can suit homes under the rules our Class Q guide explains, while former commercial and industrial yards count as previously developed land, which national policy supports.
5. Land outside the Lugg catchment. Elsewhere in the English part of the Wye catchment a scheme does not face the nutrient neutrality step, which keeps the planning case simpler.

How the option works, from the agreed price to completion, is set out in our guide to option agreements. In Herefordshire the review starts with three questions: which settlement the land relates to, which river it drains to, and whether it lies inside or close to one of the two National Landscapes.