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Selling Land in Dartford

Dartford has a local plan adopted in April 2024, a housing land supply the council puts at 5.84 years, and a garden city at Ebbsfleet where a development corporation rather than the council decides most applications. With just over half the borough in the Green Belt, knowing which authority and which policy applies to a site is where every conversation here starts.

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A Thames-Side Borough With a Garden City Inside It

Dartford Borough Council covers about 73 square kilometres and around 125,000 people. Alongside the town of Dartford it takes in Stone, Greenhithe and Swanscombe, the emerging new town of Ebbsfleet, and villages such as Wilmington, Sutton-at-Hone, Darenth, Southfleet and Longfield.

  • High Speed 1 at Ebbsfleet. Ebbsfleet International, opened in 2007, is inside the borough, alongside stations at Dartford, Stone Crossing, Greenhithe, Swanscombe and Longfield.
  • The Dartford Crossing. Two tunnels and the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge link Kent and Essex, and the plan blames the crossing's lack of resilience for much of the borough's congestion.
  • Green Belt to the south and on the marshes. The adopted plan records just over half the borough as Metropolitan Green Belt, in the south and at Dartford Marshes.
  • Delivery above the line. The Housing Delivery Test 2025 counted 2,226 homes against a requirement of 2,330, a result of 96%.
  • Brownfield-led growth. The council's monitoring report says 99% of homes completed in 2024/25 were on previously developed land.

The plan names Central Dartford and Ebbsfleet Garden City as its overriding priority for development, favours brownfield land outside the Green Belt, and leaves the Green Belt as it is. That shapes what the council expects of every other site.

Dartford in Figures

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

  • Housing Delivery Test 2025

    96%

    Meeting its housing requirement.

  • Homes built against homes needed

    2,226

    of 2,330 needed, April 2022 to March 2025

  • Most recent strategic plan adopted

    April 2024

    The plan currently used to decide applications.

  • New plan progress

    No recent stage listed

    Check the council's website for its timetable.

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.

Two Planning Authorities in One Borough

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.

Source: Ebbsfleet Development Corporation, planning and design pages.
Dartford area in the corporation's listWhat is there
Whitecliffe, the former Eastern QuarryThe neighbourhoods of Castle Hill, Alkerden and Ashmere.
Ebbsfleet GreenHousing at Weldon.
Croxton and GarryThe Ebbsfleet Cross area.

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.

A Supply Above Five Years, Built on Brownfield

The council's latest calculation, produced in December 2025 and covering the whole borough including Ebbsfleet, shows 5.84 years of deliverable housing land against the plan's requirement of 790 homes a year. The monitoring report gives the result but not the workings, and we could not find the full statement on the council's planning pages. The completions behind it are published, and they are worth setting against that yearly figure:

Completions from Dartford Borough Council's Authority Monitoring Report 2024/25 (June 2026). The comparison is our arithmetic against the plan's average rate.
YearNet homes completedAgainst 790 a year
2021/22540250 under
2022/2373852 under
2023/24674116 under
2024/2581727 over
Four years2,769391 under

The trend is upward from a low point in 2021/22, despite a dip in 2023/24. The 2023 delivery test put the council at 90%, which obliged it to publish an action plan in February 2025. That plan blamed national factors, from Brexit and Covid to build costs and labour shortages, and committed to reviewing the local plan every five years. By the Housing Delivery Test 2025, the result had risen to 96%, where no action plan is needed and only the standard 5% buffer applies.

What a Supply Above Five Years Means in Practice

Under the August 2026 framework, a supply shortfall is one way of evidencing unmet need for homes beyond a settlement's limits under policy S5. Dartford does not have one, and S5 does not reach the Green Belt in any case. For grey belt, homes need an evidenced need as well, and a delivery result of 96% with more than five years of land does not provide it.

A February 2025 appeal at Newington Farm, Sutton at Hone, shows how that plays out. The inspector accepted that the site was grey belt, but recorded that the council's five-year supply was not disputed, concluded that the very special circumstances needed to justify the scheme did not exist, and dismissed it. The proposal was for four homes in converted farm buildings. That is the honest picture for open Green Belt fields in Dartford today.

Green Belt in the South, Marshes in the North

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.

Crossings, the Peninsula and the River

Local factorWhat it means for a site
The Dartford CrossingBecause the crossing drives so much of the congestion here, any scheme that adds trips to the local roads needs strong traffic evidence.
The Lower Thames CrossingThe route lies outside the borough, but the council's plan backs it, and its latest monitoring report says it will add road capacity and ease the resilience problems at the Dartford Crossing.
Swanscombe PeninsulaNatural England declared the peninsula a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 2021, a blow the London Resort's backers called fatal. The theme park ended in January 2025, when the High Court ordered its company into liquidation.
Protected wildlife sitesThe plan maps land within 10km of the North Kent Special Protection Areas and Ramsar sites. Policy M14 sets requirements for new homes there, and the council's guidance for developers splits them into zones within 6km and from 6 to 10km.

None of these rules out a well chosen site, but each adds evidence and cost. Policy S3 of the plan also steers development to areas at lower flood risk first, so land beside the Darent needs a flood check, and our flood risk guide explains how the tests work.

The Land We Look for 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.

Dartford Before Its First Plan Review

The Review Timetable

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.

The Next Supply Statement and Delivery Test

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 Housing Delivery Test 2025 came out on 17 August 2026, and the next edition follows a year on. 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.

A North Kent Unitary, 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.

Questions About Land in Dartford

My land is near Ebbsfleet. Who decides a planning application?

If it is inside the Ebbsfleet Development Corporation's area, the corporation decides most applications, but against Dartford's local plan. Outside that area the borough council decides. We confirm which applies before any work starts.

Dartford has more than five years of housing land. Can my Green Belt field still get planning?

Rarely at present. Even where a field counts as grey belt, homes need an evidenced need, which a supply above five years does not give. Previously developed land is different, and open fields can be put forward for the next plan.

I own land in Longfield. Does the Green Belt cover it?

That depends on the exact boundary. The plan allows proportionate growth in the villages only on land outside the Green Belt, so which side of the line your land sits on decides a great deal. The policies map shows it, and we check it in our review.

Does the Lower Thames Crossing help land in Dartford?

Indirectly. The new crossing is outside the borough, but the council sees it as relief for a network that the Dartford Crossing leaves congested. Transport evidence on a site will still be tested closely.

What happened to the London Resort land at Swanscombe?

The theme park scheme ended with the company's liquidation in January 2025. The peninsula remains a Site of Special Scientific Interest, which weighs heavily against building on it.

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Sources

Figures on this page come from the Housing Delivery Test 2025 (published 17 August 2026) and the Planning Inspectorate's local plan monitoring to August 2026, with newer plan milestones checked on 24 September 2026. We update the page when new results or plan milestones are published. Planning positions change quickly, so always check the council's own website before relying on it.