Selling Land in Swale

• Fields of 2 acres or more on the edges of Sittingbourne, Faversham, Iwade or the Sheppey villages.
• Land beside Teynham, Newington, Upchurch or Boughton under Blean that backs onto existing houses.
• Sites mostly in Flood Zone 1, particularly on Sheppey and near the marshes.
• Former orchards, farmyards and commercial sites next to a settlement.
• Land within walking distance of a railway station or a town centre.

Land in the Kent Downs or out on the open marshes is harder, and we will be straight with you about that in our review.

• 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.

A 70% score brings policy S5 of the National Planning Policy Framework into play, and with no Green Belt anywhere in Swale it reaches every settlement edge, from Iwade to Boughton under Blean. Land that adjoins a settlement properly, where roads, schools and drainage can cope now or through planned works, should be approved unless the harm would substantially outweigh the benefits.

Location still decides it. A field backing onto Teynham's houses with a lane frontage makes a strong case, while one separated from the village by open fields does not, and the constraints further down this page settle many of the rest. What S5 does mean is that well placed land here need not wait for the new plan to be adopted before an application goes in.

Where the Policy Tends to Bite

• The edges of Sittingbourne and Faversham, where land against the built-up area and with a road frontage can make a strong case.
• The villages, such as Teynham, Newington and Boughton under Blean, where the scale needs to suit the village.
• Sheppey, where flood risk and the protected marshes need checking field by field before we give a view.
• Larger holdings, which can come forward through the plan as well as through an application.

The stages from our first look at a field to a council decision are set out in how long planning takes.

The North Kent Marshes

The North Kent Marshes are protected as Special Protection Areas and Ramsar sites for their birds. New homes within 6km of these sites pay a contribution per home towards the work of Bird Wise, the partnership of councils and conservation bodies that manages visitor pressure on the marshes. The council's published tariff rose from £337.49 to £350.16 per home on 1 April 2026 and is indexed each year. The council publishes a map showing the 6km zone. It is a known, modest cost that we build in from the start.

Stodmarsh: A Small Corner Only

Most of Swale is outside the Stodmarsh nutrient area. The council says the requirement affects only a small part of the borough east and south of Dunkirk and east of Oversland. Land there needs a nutrient solution before homes can be approved. Everywhere else the issue does not arise.

The Kent Downs

The Kent Downs National Landscape reaches into the south of the borough around the M2. In its comments on Highsted Park, the Kent Downs team pointed out that the proposed new motorway junction would sit inside the National Landscape and that the new village proposed just north of the motorway would be close to its boundary. Major development inside it needs exceptional circumstances, and land near the boundary is judged on its effect on views from the Downs.

For an owner selling land in Swale, the useful point is that none of the three is a ban: the bird tariff is a fixed sum per home, the nutrient rule touches only the corner near Dunkirk and Oversland, and the bar is highest inside the National Landscape itself.

Supply comes first. After the Housing Delivery Test 2025 was published, the council redid its sums with the 20% buffer that applies to councils under 85%, and its August 2026 interim update now puts supply at 3.48 years, measured at 1 April 2025. The update tests supply against the government's standard method figure of 1,064 homes a year, the formula rerun on newer house price and housing stock data, which the government publishes each year, rather than the 1,048 it gave in December 2024. Five years of that is 5,320 homes, and the buffer lifts the target to 6,384, while the council counts 4,437 deliverable homes, a gap of 1,947. Its housing land supply page says a full statement to a base date of 1 April 2026 will follow later in 2026, the first to take in a whole further year of building.

The delivery test itself comes round once a year, and the next edition would normally cover the three years to March 2026. We will not guess Swale's result. If it stays under 75%, policy S5 keeps treating unmet need as a given. If it climbs past that line, the automatic finding goes, but a supply short of five years still counts as evidence of need, so the argument for a well placed field changes shape rather than disappearing. Only a result of 85% or more would let the buffer drop back.

The Plan After Submission

The council's Local Development Scheme, agreed in July 2025 and linked from its Local Plan Review page, pencils in hearings for April to June 2027, consultation on changes from July to September 2027 and adoption between October and December 2027, all subject to the Planning Inspectorate's availability.

Before Adoption, S5 Carries Most Weight

For land that sits properly against a town or village, the months before adoption are when S5 carries most weight, since an adopted plan with fresh allocations gives the council firmer ground to resist sites it has not chosen. Allocated land follows the examination instead. Either way, there is no need to hold back until Highsted Park is decided; we can review your land now and adjust the approach once the outcome is known.