Selling Land in Medway

• Yards, depots, workshops and other previously developed land inside Chatham, Gillingham, Rochester, Strood and Rainham.
• Fields on the edges of the towns, outside the Green Belt, with a safe route to a road.
• Land around Hoo St Werburgh, Cliffe and High Halstow on the drier ground.
• Sites within walking distance of a town centre or a station.
• Larger holdings next to the proposed growth areas that could form later phases.

Land out on the marshes, or in the Green Belt north west of Strood, Cuxton and Halling, faces a higher bar, and our review will spell out how much higher for your particular field.

• 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.

Much of Medway's new housing is planned on previously developed land. The plan moves Chatham Docks towards residential-led development, with around 2,200 homes, and proposes around 690 homes in the Frindsbury Peninsula opportunity area, the former Medway City Estate, with a planning framework due by 2030/31 that covers a riverside strategy and flood defences.

For owners of smaller urban sites, the key point is policy S4 of the National Planning Policy Framework. Inside a settlement it points firmly towards approval unless the adverse effects are substantial. That applies to a builders' yard in Gillingham, a garage block in Chatham or a large garden in Rochester, whatever stage the plan has reached.

1. Check the lawful use. Land with a lawful commercial or industrial use is previously developed, which helps the case. Agricultural buildings do not count.
2. Look at the neighbours. Overlooking, daylight and parking are the usual questions on urban plots, and a good layout answers most of them.
3. Investigate the ground. Former industrial and commercial land often needs a contamination survey, and any remediation is designed into the scheme.
4. Consider the heritage. A plot in or beside a conservation area, or near a listed building, needs a design that respects it, which shapes the scheme rather than ruling it out.

Our page on yards and other brownfield land explains what we look for in urban sites. We pay for every survey and report.

On the Hoo Peninsula the plan proposes up to around 5,000 homes across several sites around Hoo St Werburgh, with three new community centres, primary and secondary schools, and about 157,000 square metres of employment space in the Kingsnorth expansion area.

The Infrastructure Question

In July 2023 the government and Homes England ended a £170 million Housing Infrastructure Fund programme for the peninsula, which was meant to pay for new roads and sustainable transport, junction improvements at Four Elms and Sans Pareil, better public transport, rights of way and new community parkland at Deangate. The council leader said at the time that without it the council could not fund those works ahead of the new homes. That leaves growth on the peninsula more dependent on what individual schemes can provide.

Birds and Marshes

Bird Wise North Kent, which Medway runs with Gravesham, Swale and Canterbury, protects the Thames Estuary and Marshes, Medway Estuary and Marshes and Swale Special Protection Areas. Any new home within 6km of those sites carries a per-home payment, which the council secures through a legal agreement and collects before anyone moves in. Flood risk is also checked field by field before we give a view. See our guide to flood risk and development land.

For a landowner on Hoo, the most promising land is usually close to Hoo St Werburgh and the larger villages, on the drier ground, with a road access that does not rely on works that are no longer funded.

On 7 September 2026, weeks after the July decision noted in the questions below, the government paused reorganisation in Kent and Medway pending a review. Ministers added that the May 2027 elections would still be held, with Medway electing councillors to its existing council rather than to any new authority. Medway Council's leader called the news disappointing and said the council would keep delivering its services meanwhile. For landowners, that means planning decisions stay with Medway Council for the foreseeable future.

Main Modifications, Then a Vote to Adopt

If the inspectors find that the plan can be made sound with changes, the usual next step is a schedule of main modifications, published for consultation before their final report. Only then can the council adopt. That matters for the allocations the inspectors have questioned, such as the Strood release, because a main modification can add, alter or remove a site. Adoption is a vote of the full council, and with the May 2027 elections going ahead, it may fall to a newly elected one.

Delivery is the other measure to follow. Medway's 60% comes from the Housing Delivery Test 2025, published on 17 August 2026; the next yearly edition should take in the year to March 2026. Without forecasting, lifting a three year measure from 60% past 75% in one release would take a step change in building, so S5 should stay in play for unallocated land outside the Green Belt while the plan is settled.

Land Supply Against 1,636 Homes a Year

The council's five-year supply page puts Medway at 3.1 years for the five years from 1 April 2025. It takes need at 1,636 homes a year, adds a 20% buffer for past under-delivery, and sets the resulting 9,816 homes against 6,159 it counts as deliverable, most of them on large sites, leaving a gap of 3,657. That shortfall is evidence of unmet need to be weighed in its own right, separate from the delivery result, so the case for well related land outside the Green Belt does not rest on the delivery test alone. The count already includes 803 homes on proposed allocations with permission or a resolution to approve; adoption would bring more of the plan's sites into it, and that, more than any single year of completions, is what would move the figure.

In practice, the timing turns on the modifications. If modifications touch an allocated site, expect a further round of comment and have delivery evidence ready for it. For land inside the proposed Strood release, the inspectors' view on the earlier consultation will decide a good deal, and we would wait for it before advising on that route. Across the rest of Medway, the political calendar changes nothing about how an application is judged today.