Selling Land in Hertsmere

• Fields on the edge of Borehamwood, Potters Bar, Bushey or Radlett that are enclosed by existing development or roads.
• Parcels cut off from the wider countryside by the M25, the M1 or the A1.
• Former yards, depots and nurseries with a lawful commercial use, or anywhere else with existing buildings or hardstanding.
• Land within walking distance of Elstree & Borehamwood, Radlett or Potters Bar stations.
• Holdings around Shenley, Elstree and South Mimms that can deliver homes early in the plan period.
• Sites with a safe road access, or a realistic way to create one.

Land that plainly keeps Borehamwood apart from north London, or that sits in open country with nothing around it, faces a harder test, and we will say so after our review. If there is a case to make, we make it at our own cost, and our how it works page explains what happens after the first call.

• 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.

Few councils have gone back to the drawing board as often as Hertsmere. The history matters, because each draft left behind evidence, site assessments and local reactions that still colour how land is judged.

1. 2021. A draft plan proposed more than 12,000 homes, including a new settlement at Bowmans Cross, 2,770 homes around Borehamwood and 900 south of Potters Bar. Local reporting said it drew 20,000 responses, and the council abandoned it in early 2022.
2. 2024. A revised draft, consulted on until 29 May 2024, proposed 9,400 homes over 16 years, just under 590 a year, against a government need figure of 726. The council said it took more than 40% less Green Belt than the 2021 version, over 300 hectares less.
3. 2026. Higher national housing figures sent the council back again. A new draft was consulted on between 16 April and 29 May 2026, and the council intends to publish its final version for comment later in 2026.

The deadline is fixed. To be examined under the current plan-making system, the council says it must submit the plan by 31 December 2026. Missing it would mean starting again under the new system, so the pressure to finish is real.

CPRE Hertfordshire, which opposes the scale of change, says the April 2026 draft allocates more than 1,000 hectares of Green Belt, and argues that the council's Green Belt assessment treats nearly all of it as grey belt. Whatever view one takes of that, it shows how far the council has had to move since 2024. Our guide to how councils choose sites for a local plan sets out each stage in plain terms.

Any score under 75% means policy S5 treats the need for homes in Hertsmere as evidenced. In a less protected district that would support homes on many edge-of-settlement fields. Here it cannot do that directly, since the S5 route is switched off in the Green Belt and almost all of the countryside is Green Belt. The shortfall still does real work, but through other doors.

What the Shenley Hill Appeal Showed

The clearest test so far came at Radlett. In March 2026 an inspector allowed up to 195 homes south of Shenley Hill, half of them affordable, with land set aside for Newberries Primary School to expand and a new medical centre. The council and the developer had agreed that the borough could identify only 0.98 years of housing land. The inspector found the site to be grey belt, found that the scheme met the Golden Rules, and gave the new homes very substantial weight.

The supply has been falling. When an inspector allowed up to 220 homes at Barnet Lane and Furzehill Road in Borehamwood in November 2024, the figure before him was 1.36 years. The council's latest published statement of its own has a base date of 1 April 2023, so the figures agreed at inquiries are now the best guide to where it stands.

Schemes on grey belt land also have to meet the Golden Rules, which include extra affordable housing, and they are set out in our grey belt guide. Those requirements reduce what a scheme can support, and we allow for them from our first look at a site.

The council's own page on the draft plan puts the stakes plainly: without an up-to-date local plan, it says, development is more likely to come forward through speculative applications and the appeals process. That describes the borough today, and it remains the case until a new plan is adopted.

The next milestone is the final version of the plan, which the council intends to publish for comment later in 2026, ahead of the submission deadline described above. That publication stage is the last formal chance to comment before an inspector takes over. Once the plan is submitted, its examination is likely to run into 2027.

That was also meant to be the year a new council took shape. The government announced its decision for Hertfordshire on 16 July 2026, with May 2027 polls for the incoming councils and vesting on 1 April 2028, so an examination through 2027 would have overlapped with South West Hertfordshire being set up. On 7 September 2026 the decision was put on hold for review. The May 2027 polls will use the current boundaries, and Hertsmere Borough Council stays responsible for the plan and for deciding applications.

The Housing Delivery Test comes round every year, and the latest, the Housing Delivery Test 2025, was released on 17 August 2026. It pools three years of completions, so one stronger year only partly lifts the result, and while the borough remains below 75% the need for homes is treated as evidenced. For Hertsmere, a new plan would change the picture far more quickly than any movement in the test.

So the practical choice for an owner is between working through the plan and working alongside it. A candidate site should have its transport, drainage and Green Belt evidence complete before the publication stage. Land outside the plan can still be tested through an application while the 2013 plan governs decisions, with the grey belt route doing most of the work.