Leicestershire council area

Selling Land in Melton

Melton has built more homes than its 2018 plan asked for in every year since 2018/19, and it can show 7.6 years of housing land, so most new sites here come through the plan rather than a shortfall. A partial update of that plan finished its hearings on 9 September 2026, and the council has committed to start a wholly new Local Plan, measured against a higher government figure, as soon as the update is adopted.

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Melton Mowbray and a Ring of Twelve Service Centres

Melton Borough Council covers 48,138 hectares of rural north east Leicestershire, with Melton Mowbray as its only town. Its adopted plan describes rolling hills and valleys, with the escarpments along the southern edge of the Vale of Belvoir as the most prominent features, and the Wreake, the Eye and Gaddesby Brook running through gently sloping valleys. Below the town, the plan ranks twelve Service Centres: Asfordby, Bottesford, Croxton Kerrial, Harby, Hose, Long Clawson, Old Dalby, Scalford, Somerby, Stathern, Waltham and Wymondham. Seven Rural Hubs sit below them: Ab Kettleby, Asfordby Hill, Easthorpe, Frisby on the Wreake, Gaddesby, Great Dalby and Thorpe Arnold. Smaller villages and hamlets with few services count as Rural Settlements, and land outside the settlements is open countryside, where the plan restricts new building to what is necessary and appropriate.

Far ahead on delivery. The Housing Delivery Test 2025 records 1,156 homes built against 608 required, a result of 190%.
A plan now 7 years old. The Melton Local Plan 2011 to 2036, adopted in October 2018, provides for at least 6,125 homes.
More than five years of land. The council's latest statement finds 7.6 years of deliverable housing sites at 31 March 2025.
An update at examination. A partial update of the plan was submitted on 27 March 2026.
A modest share of Leicester's need. Under the 2022 agreement between the Leicester and Leicestershire councils, Melton takes 69 homes a year of the city's unmet need up to 2036.

Taken together, these facts point one way. In Melton, a field reaches planning through the plan and its village policies, not through a council struggling to find land.

Melton in Figures

The government's latest figures for the council, its latest five-year housing land supply, and where its local plan stands.

Housing Delivery Test 2025
190%
Meeting its housing requirement.
Five-year housing land supply
7.6 years
Five years or more of deliverable housing land. Position at 31 March 2025, measured against the 2018 Local Plan's stepped requirement (245 homes for 2025/26, then 320 a year), kept although the plan is over five years old because the council's 2023 review found the targets broadly appropriate, plus a 5% buffer. Stated by Melton Borough Council.
Checked source
Homes built against homes needed
1,156
of 608 needed, April 2022 to March 2025
Most recent strategic plan adopted
October 2018
More than five years old, so its housing figures are usually replaced by the government's standard method.
New plan progress
Updated
Local Plan Partial Update submitted March 2026; examination hearings held 2 to 9 September 2026
Checked source

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.

7.6 Years, Measured Against the Plan's Stepped Figure

Melton's requirement climbs in three steps: 170 a year for 2011 to 2021, 245 a year for 2021 to 2026 and 320 a year for the final ten years to 2036. The council's five-year supply report of November 2025, with a base date of 31 March 2025, applies that staircase to the five years ahead:

Source: Melton Borough Council, five-year housing land supply and housing trajectory report, version 2, November 2025, table 2.
Part of the calculation	Council's figure
Yearly requirement used	245 homes for 2025/26, then 320 a year for four years
Basic five-year requirement	1,525 homes
Past delivery	3,164 homes built from 2011 to 2025, 484 more than the plan required by then; the surplus is not deducted
Buffer	5%, because the council passes the delivery test by a wide margin
Five-year requirement with buffer	1,601 homes
Sites identified	2,548 homes
Allowance for permissions that lapse	5.64%, which takes off 122 homes
Deliverable supply	2,426 homes
Result	7.6 years

Completions explain the comfortable margin. After slow early years, including 52 homes in 2013/14, building rose to 334 in 2019/20 and has stayed above 300 every year since, reaching 398 in 2024/25. The plan's 320 step only starts in 2026/27, so the borough has been building at the later rate for some time already.

Why the Plan Figure, and Not the Government's

Once a plan is more than five years old, supply is usually tested against the government's standard method instead. National planning guidance makes one exception: the plan figure can still be used where its housing policies were reviewed within the last five years and found not to need updating. Melton relies on that exception. The statement itself says only that it treats the 2018 plan, "in the context of the Local Plan Review", as still relevant, and it does not mention the standard method at all. The reasoning sits in the council's 2023 review of the plan, which found that "the local plan targets continue to be broadly appropriate", because the standard method then gave 185 homes a year against the 170 of assessed need behind the plan.

That review came before the government changed its method in December 2024, and the figure has since roughly doubled. The Leicester and Leicestershire councils' statement of common ground of December 2025 puts Melton's need at 369 homes a year. The November 2025 statement does not revisit the 2023 finding against that number, but today the difference is academic. Five years at 369 with a 5% buffer comes to about 1,937 homes, and even with a 20% buffer about 2,214, both below the 2,426 the council counts. On any of these yardsticks Melton has more than five years of land today.

What More Than Five Years Means for a Field

In the August 2026 version of the national framework, policy S5 backs new homes beyond a settlement's edge, on land that relates well to it, once unmet need for housing is evidenced. A delivery result under 75% counts as that evidence automatically. A shortfall in the five-year supply counts too, but as a factor the decision-maker weighs rather than a finding made for it. Melton shows neither, so S5 does little for an open field here at present, and we would rather say so plainly. Several routes do not depend on a shortfall at all. Inside Melton Mowbray and the built-up parts of the villages, policy S4 applies, and a scheme should be approved unless the harm would substantially outweigh the benefits. Policy SS3 supports small schemes on village edges, rural exception sites for affordable homes remain open, and larger land is decided through the plan.

Two Sustainable Neighbourhoods and a New Road Round the Town

Policy SS2 of the adopted plan sends about 65% of the borough's housing to Melton Mowbray and about 35% to the Service Centres and Rural Hubs. The town's share rests on two sustainable neighbourhoods, and the November 2025 trajectory shows them moving at different speeds:

Melton South, 2,000 homes, of which the plan expects 1,700 before 2036. The trajectory now counts 1,433 by then, including homes already built.
Melton North, 1,700 homes, of which the plan expects 1,500 before 2036. The trajectory counts 1,906 by then, more than the plan asked for.

Across the whole borough the trajectory shows 8,333 homes over the plan period against the 6,125 required, so the plan's total is not in doubt. The southern shortfall is still worth knowing about, because the southern neighbourhood carries the link road the town is missing. Each neighbourhood was planned with a link road forming part of the Melton Mowbray Distributor Road, and the plan places Areas of Separation around them to keep Burton Lazars and Eye Kettleby, and Scalford and Thorpe Arnold, distinct from the town.

The North and East Road, and the Missing Southern Link

Leicestershire County Council's 4.5-mile north and east road, named Pork Pie Way after a public vote, runs from the A606 Nottingham Road around the eastern edge of the town and back to the A606 near Burton Lazars. It cost £131 million and opened to traffic in May 2026. The southern link, from Burton Road to the A607 Leicester Road, is not part of that scheme. In December 2024 the Melton Times reported no immediate prospect of funding for it: the estimate had risen from £27.5 million, towards which Homes England had agreed £18.5 million, to about £61.4 million. The county's acting leader said there was "no money in the budget for a south link to the bypass at present", adding that money may be available once the planned houses south of the town are built.

For owners of land around the town, the road matters in two ways. Access is usually the first question on a larger holding, and the modified policy SS6 lists delivery of the sustainable neighbourhoods or the distributor road among the matters that could prompt an early review of the plan.

Village Edges Under Policy SS3

The adopted plan's policy SS3 supports new homes within or on the edge of the borough's existing rural settlements, where a scheme suits the size and character of the village and meets criteria covering local housing need, landscape, infrastructure, wildlife, the best farmland and drainage. The 2023 review found that the policy "has not provided a clear and consistent framework" for applicants, residents or decision-makers, and the partial update rewrites it.

The council's schedule of proposed main modifications, updated for the inspectors on 27 August 2026, sets out how the rewritten policy would read:

From the August 2026 schedule of proposed main modifications, MM53. The wording is not final until the plan is adopted.
Place in the hierarchy	Scale the modified policy suggests
Service Centres, such as Bottesford, Long Clawson or Somerby	Schemes of up to about 10 homes, in a gap in a built-up frontage or adjoining the village
Rural Hubs, such as Frisby on the Wreake or Great Dalby	Schemes of up to about 5 homes
Rural Settlements	Schemes of up to about 3 homes, with growth over the plan period limited to 10% of the village's 2011 housing stock

Within those limits, the modified policy supports two- and three-bedroom houses and accessible bungalows built to national space standards, or schemes the community backs through a neighbourhood plan, a Community Right to Build Order or a Neighbourhood Development Order. The inspectors' questions for the hearings, published on the examination page, asked whether that 10% cap is justified by the evidence, so the detail may yet move.

In practice, this is a small-sites policy. A paddock beside Long Clawson or Waltham suits a scheme of around ten well-sized family homes, not fifty. They still need care over access, drainage and design, and we take them on; see paddocks and small sites for the kind of land we mean.

An Update to 2036, Then a New Plan

Full Council agreed to review the 2018 plan in April 2022. The review, reported in September 2023, kept the housing targets but found 31 of the plan's 47 policies needing an update, including the employment and climate change policies, the main design policy and the policies for both sustainable neighbourhoods. The resulting Partial Update was published for comment from 17 January to 28 February 2025 and keeps the 2011 to 2036 plan period. Under the transitional rules in the December 2024 framework it is being examined against the December 2023 version, by two inspectors, G Wyatt and C Skelly, appointed on 17 April 2026. Hearings ran at the council's Parkside offices from 2 to 9 September 2026.

A Promise Written Into the Plan

As modified, policy SS6 says: "The council will commence a new Local Plan immediately upon adoption of this partial update." The council's Local Development Scheme of September 2025 sets out the indicative dates:

Melton Borough Council Local Development Scheme, September 2025. The council describes the examination and adoption dates as indicative, as advised by the Planning Inspectorate.
Stage	Council's timetable
Partial Update: examination, main modifications and inspectors' report	January 2026 to June 2027
Partial Update: adoption	July 2027
New Local Plan: scoping and early participation	September to December 2027
New Local Plan: plan production and consultations	January 2028 to November 2030
New Local Plan: examination and adoption	December 2030 to June 2031

The same scheme expected the update to be submitted in December 2025. It went in on 27 March 2026, about three months later, so the dates after it may move as well.

Why the New Plan Matters Most

The new plan will be written against the 369 homes a year of the December 2024 method, not the 320 of the current one, and the December 2025 statement of common ground adds 19 homes a year of Leicester's unmet need from 2036 to 2046. A higher target over a longer period means more land to find, and a site the council already knows about, with evidence behind it, is better placed when scoping begins in late 2027. The council accepts site submissions outside a formal call for sites and assesses them at its next land availability update; its latest assessment dates from April 2024. Our call for sites and local plans explainer follows a site from that first submission through to allocation.

The Land We Look for in Melton

Paddocks and small fields adjoining a Service Centre such as Bottesford, Asfordby, Long Clawson, Waltham or Wymondham, suited to a scheme of about ten homes.
Gaps in a built-up frontage in the Rural Hubs, such as Frisby on the Wreake, Gaddesby or Great Dalby.
Plots, yards and underused land inside Melton Mowbray, where policy S4 applies.
Land on the edge of Melton Mowbray outside the sustainable neighbourhoods and their Areas of Separation, with a realistic access.
Larger farm holdings that could be put forward for the new Local Plan before its scoping stage.

Land on the Vale of Belvoir escarpment, or low-lying ground beside the Wreake and the Eye, faces a harder test, and our review will tell you honestly how hard. When we take a site on, the price is fixed on day one at a level above its current worth, and every survey, application and appeal is paid for by us. Farming or grazing carries on until completion; should planning fail, you keep the land with nothing to pay. The sequence is laid out on our how it works page.

Melton Between Its September Hearings and a New Plan

The Inspectors' Next Letter

With the hearings closed on 9 September 2026, the examination page says the inspectors "will now consider their position and will be in touch with the Council in due course". Main modifications would then normally go out for public comment before the inspectors report. The council's timetable pencils in adoption for July 2027. Until then the adopted SS3 applies to village applications, with the modified wording carrying growing weight as the examination advances.

The Next Supply Statement

The last statement, first issued in September 2025 and revised in November, was based at 31 March 2025. A statement based a year later would be the first to apply the plan's 320-a-year step to all five years, and it would add the completions of 2025/26. It is also the one to read for the yardstick: whether the council still relies on its 2023 review, or turns to the 369 a year of the December 2024 method. We make no forecast. Building has run above 300 homes a year since 2019/20.

The Next Delivery Test

A new edition of the test follows the Housing Delivery Test 2025 each year. At 190%, Melton is far from its thresholds: an action plan below 95%, a 20% buffer below 85% and unmet need treated as evidenced below 75%.

Reorganisation, Paused

In July 2026 the government decided that Melton would join a new unitary council for the rest of Leicestershire and Rutland from April 2028, alongside a separate council for Leicester and its fringe. That decision is paused for a government review. Five other Leicestershire councils sent a pre-action letter challenging it on 21 September 2026; Melton was not among them. For now, Melton Borough Council remains the planning authority, and the body that will start the new Local Plan.

What This Means for Timing

A small site beside a village can be looked at now, with the modified SS3 wording in mind.
Land inside Melton Mowbray or a village's built-up area can go forward under policy S4 whenever it is ready.
A larger holding is best prepared for the new plan, with its evidence ready before scoping in late 2027.

Questions About Land in Melton

Melton already has more than five years of land. Why would my field be of interest now?

Because the next plan has to find room for more homes than the current one, at 369 a year rather than 320, and the council has committed to start it as soon as the partial update is adopted. Sites with their evidence ready before scoping in late 2027 are best placed, and we pay for that evidence.

My paddock adjoins Long Clawson. How many homes could it take?

Long Clawson is a Service Centre, and the rewritten policy SS3 suggests schemes of up to about ten homes within or adjoining such villages, favouring two- and three-bedroom houses and accessible bungalows. The wording is not final until the partial update is adopted, and access, drainage and landscape still decide the detail.

My land is next to the new distributor road. Is it now development land?

Not by itself. The road improves access to land north and east of the town, but land still needs to come through the plan or fit an existing policy. It can make a site easier to serve, which helps when the new plan looks for land.

Does Leicester's housing shortfall affect Melton?

A little. Under the 2022 agreement Melton already takes 69 homes a year of the city's need up to 2036, within its plan. The December 2025 statement adds 19 a year from 2036 to 2046 for plans made under the new rules. There is more on the wider picture on our Leicestershire page.

Will reorganisation change who decides my application?

Not at present. The July 2026 decision to fold Melton into a Leicestershire and Rutland council from April 2028 is paused for a government review, and Melton Borough Council still decides applications and prepares the plan.

Tell Us About Your Land in Melton

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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.