Selling Land in North Hertfordshire

One line in the council's call for sites shapes where we look. National policy requires the new plan to put at least 10% of the housing requirement, about 1,100 homes, on sites under one hectare, and a further 10% on sites of one to 2.5 hectares. Middle-sized land is something the plan has to find, not an afterthought:

• Fields of one to 2.5 hectares with a road frontage on the edge of Hitchin, Letchworth Garden City, Baldock or Royston.
• Sites under a hectare that could take ten homes or more beside Knebworth, Codicote, Ickleford, Barkway or Little Wymondley, or a Category A village such as Ashwell, Pirton or Kimpton.
• Land outside the Green Belt that sits well against an existing town or village, which can go forward by application now rather than wait for the new plan.
• Disused factories, old car parks, vacant offices and former yards, including those in the Green Belt, which the council particularly invites as previously developed land.
• Plots, backland and larger gardens inside the four towns and within Category A village boundaries, where general development is already allowed.

Some land is harder, and we will say so. Open Green Belt that does not qualify as grey belt, including the newer Green Belt between Hitchin and Luton, land in the Chilterns National Landscape or its setting, and fields beside Category B villages or Category C hamlets, where policy allows infilling or local affordable homes at most, all face a steeper climb. We still look at each one on its merits.

• 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 council's land supply update of November 2025 covers the five years from 1 April 2025 to March 2030. It found 3,629 homes on deliverable sites against 6,976 needed under the adopted plan, or 2.6 years. Against the government's standard method, at 1,043 homes a year, it reached 3.3 years. The lower figure is the statement's headline, and the council's planning committee reports were still quoting it in April 2026. At an appeal for a single house off Caldecote Road in Newnham, decided on 29 July 2026, it gave the inspector the 3.3 year estimate instead, and the appellant did not dispute it. On either measure the district is well short of five years.

The plan's housing requirement is stepped, rising to 1,120 homes a year from April 2024, and the district carries 1,253 homes of undersupply from earlier years. The council applied only the basic 5% buffer, because its previous delivery result, from the 2023 measurement, was 105%.

Why This Matters More Than the 75% Headline

National policy treats a council scoring below 75% as having unmet housing need, and North Hertfordshire is not below that line. But the August 2026 framework also accepts a shortfall in the five-year supply as evidence of unmet need under policy S5, and the council's own document supplies it. For land outside the Green Belt that sits well against a town or village, where roads, schools and drainage can cope, S5 is a live route.

1. Inside a town or village boundary. Policy S4 applies. Approval should follow unless the harm would substantially outweigh the benefits.
2. Outside a settlement, beyond the Green Belt. Policy S5 can apply, with the land supply shortfall as the evidence of need. The site still has to relate well to the settlement beside it.
3. In the Green Belt. S5 does not reach it. The question becomes whether the land is grey belt, or previously developed, and whether a scheme can meet the Golden Rules.

Our grey belt guide sets out that third route in full.

Policy SP2 sorts every settlement into a category that decides what can happen inside it. Because policy S4 works within settlements, knowing which one your land sits in, or next to, is the first step.

• Towns. Baldock, Hitchin, Letchworth Garden City and Royston, with the edges of Stevenage and Luton, take about four fifths of the planned homes. Five villages, Barkway, Codicote, Ickleford, Knebworth and Little Wymondley, take a larger share than the rest.
• Category A villages. General development is allowed within their boundaries. They include Ashwell, Barley, Kimpton, Offley, Pirton, Preston, Reed, St Ippolyts, Weston and Whitwell.
• Category B villages. Only infilling that does not extend the built core, in places such as Great Wymondley, Hinxworth, Lilley, Old Knebworth and Willian.
• Category C settlements. Limited affordable housing and community facilities for local needs, in hamlets such as Bygrave, Clothall, Langley and Radwell.

Neighbourhood plans can go further, though they cannot move Green Belt boundaries. A paddock beside a Category A village is a very different proposition from one beside a Category C hamlet.

The council first invited land in May 2025 and is taking sites until 5pm on 24 November 2026. Two details are easy to miss:

• Earlier submissions do not carry over. The council asks for sites put forward before to be sent in again.
• Allocations start at about ten homes. Smaller sites are still welcomed for the brownfield and self-build registers.

A land availability study, which the council's call for sites page expects to publish in 2027, will assess them and could inform draft allocations by autumn 2027. Under an option agreement with us, we prepare and pay for the submission and its evidence, and keep making the case at each later stage. The general process is set out in call for sites and local plans.