Selling Land in Dartford

• Plots, backland and large gardens inside Dartford, Stone, Greenhithe and Swanscombe.
• Old yards, depots and plots with lawful commercial buildings, in or out of the Green Belt.
• Land in Longfield, Wilmington, Sutton-at-Hone or Darenth that lies outside the Green Belt.
• Sites within walking distance of Ebbsfleet International, Dartford or Greenhithe station.
• Larger Green Belt holdings that could be considered in the council's next plan.

Small sites count here: plots under a hectare supplied 69 of the 817 homes completed in 2024/25. Our paddocks and small sites page explains how we approach them. On any site we take on, we fund the surveys, the application and any appeal, under an option at a price agreed at the start and set above what the land is worth now. You keep using the land, and if permission is not granted you keep it and owe nothing.

• 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 Ebbsfleet Development Corporation was set up by the government in 2015 to speed up the garden city, which straddles Dartford and Gravesham. Planning powers inside its urban development area passed to it from Kent County Council and the two boroughs, and it now decides the majority of applications there, from full permissions to variations, discharge of conditions and advertisement consent. Plan-making does not move: the corporation's own words are that the plan-making role remains with the local authorities. So a site inside the area is judged against Dartford's plan, but by the corporation.

Around Ebbsfleet International itself, outline permission was secured in March 2026 for Ebbsfleet Central East: around 2,100 homes, at least 35% of them affordable, and about 87,000 square metres of offices on 34.86 hectares of brownfield land. The corporation says more than 5,000 homes have already been delivered across the wider garden city, and the council's monitoring report expects the main Ebbsfleet area to provide over 5,000 during the plan period. Its chair, David Prout, has named a start on the town centre as a priority for the next few years.

What It Means for a Landowner

Land inside or next to the development area needs a check before anything else: which body would decide an application. The corporation itself asks applicants to get in touch if they are unsure. We confirm the boundary as part of our first review, and deal with whichever authority it is.

The plan's spatial strategy is plain. The openness and permanence of the Green Belt in the south of the borough and at Dartford Marshes will be kept, and any homes in the villages must be of proportionate scale and on land outside the Green Belt. The routes that remain are narrower but real:

1. Inside the urban area. Plots, yards and gardens in Dartford, Stone, Greenhithe and Swanscombe are judged under policy S4, which favours approval unless the harm would substantially outweigh the benefits. Central Dartford has four named allocations, at Westgate, east of Lowfield Street, the Priory Shopping Centre and the station and River Darent area.
2. Inside the villages. Where land in Wilmington, Sutton-at-Hone, Darenth, Longfield or another village lies outside the Green Belt, it can take homes at a scale that suits the village.
3. Previously developed land in the Green Belt. Yards, depots and plots with lawful buildings other than farm buildings have their own route in national policy, and it does not depend on the housing numbers.
4. The next plan. Open Green Belt fields will mostly have to wait for the council's next plan, where the Green Belt boundary can be looked at again.

Our brownfield and yards page covers the third route, and the grey belt guide sets out how the purposes of the Green Belt are tested and the Golden Rules that follow.

The council's Local Development Scheme of December 2025 keeps the adopted plan in place and says a first statutory review is not required until 2029, five years after adoption in April 2024. It programmes work on a new-style plan to start in late 2026, contingent on national legislation, with 30 months to complete it, and calls estimating dates for every later stage unrealistic for now. The same scheme starts a review of the Community Infrastructure Levy in 2026. Once the plan passes five years, national policy generally measures supply against the government's standard method rather than the plan's 790 a year.

A Statement Due for Replacement, and a North Kent Unitary on Hold

Two annual figures are due first. The scheme also says a supply statement is produced at least once a year, so the December 2025 calculation is due for replacement, taking in the 2025/26 completions the next monitoring report will record. The delivery test, last issued as the Housing Delivery Test 2025 on 17 August 2026, returns a year later. From 96%, slipping under 95% would bring a new action plan; under 85%, the supply sums would carry a 20% margin instead of 5%; and under 75%, policy S5 would regard the need for homes as shown. We do not predict the result. The 817 homes of 2024/25 were the first year above the plan's average in this plan period.

Reorganisation is on hold. On 16 July 2026 ministers decided that Kent and Medway would be served by four councils from April 2028, with Dartford joining Gravesham and Medway in a north Kent unitary. Less than two months later, on 7 September 2026, ministers put it on hold while they review reorganisation in light of new legal advice, and the May 2027 elections will run on existing boundaries. For now Dartford remains the plan-making authority and the corporation keeps its role at Ebbsfleet.

When to Act on Which Land

• Previously developed land and sites inside the urban area or villages can be assessed now, as neither depends on the housing numbers.
• Open Green Belt land is best readied for the council's next plan, with evidence prepared before the first consultation.
• Land near Ebbsfleet starts with the boundary check, so the right authority is approached.