Selling Land in South Kesteven

• Fields on the edges of Grantham, Great Gonerby and Barrowby, including land near the southern relief road.
• Land beside Stamford, Bourne, Market Deeping or Deeping St James that relates well to the town.
• Fields and paddocks adjoining a Larger Village such as Long Bennington, Corby Glen, Colsterworth, Langtoft or Thurlby.
• Plots, large gardens, yards and redundant farm buildings inside a settlement.
• Larger farm holdings, including land put forward to the old review, ready for the 2026 call for sites.

For a single paddock or a whole farm, the price is fixed in the option before any work begins, set above what the land is worth in its current use. We then pay for the surveys, the community consultation SP4 asks for, the call for sites submission and the planning application, at our own cost and risk. You carry on farming until completion, and if permission is not granted the land remains yours and you owe us nothing. Our farmland page explains how we look at whole holdings.

• 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.

South Kesteven's latest statement of its five-year supply, issued in March 2025 with a base date of 1 April 2024, finds 4.07 years. With the plan more than five years old, it measures against the standard method's 895 homes a year rather than the plan's 650:

Two of the largest allocations add nothing to that total: Stamford North, because its planning application had not progressed as anticipated, and the Prince William of Gloucester Barracks at Grantham, where no application had been made.

What a Supply Below Five Years Does for a Field

Under the August 2026 framework, policy S5 supports new homes beyond a settlement's edge where the land relates well to the place, local infrastructure can serve it, and unmet need is evidenced. A supply below five years is evidence of that need for the decision maker to weigh; it is not an automatic finding, and every application is still judged on its own merits.

For an owner whose field adjoins a market town or Larger Village, that is the opening: land able to deliver homes within five years answers a gap the council's own figures put at several hundred homes.

Away from Grantham, each market town carries its own allocations. Stamford North, allocated for 1,300 homes on 53 hectares, was found by the inspector to be "the logical and most sustainable option for Stamford", with capacity for around 2,000 homes when joined with Quarry Farm across the Rutland boundary. The 2025 statement expects the Elsea Park zones at Bourne to be completed within its five years, while the 680-home allocation off Linchfield Road at Market Deeping had no application.

Land that is not allocated is tested against local and national policy together:

1. Inside the built-up part of a town or village. National policy S4 says a scheme should be approved unless its harm would substantially outweigh its benefits, and policy SP3 supports infill or previously developed land within the existing built form.
2. Against the edge of a settlement. Policy SP4 asks for land adjoining the existing pattern of development that does not extend obtrusively into open countryside, and, for housing, a proven local need.
3. The community support test. SP4 also asks for clear evidence of substantial support from the local community, through consultation before the application or the backing of the parish or town council.
4. Where unmet need is evidenced. With the supply below five years, national policy S5 is weighed alongside SP4 for well related land that infrastructure can serve.
5. Affordable homes for a village. A rural exception site need not meet the community support criterion, but must show local need from a housing needs survey and a local connection for its residents.

That test puts the community's view at the front of an edge-of-village scheme. Consultation with the parish council takes money and time, and it is work we carry out and pay for. Our page on paddocks and small sites covers the smaller plots where SP3 usually applies.

For most owners selling land for development in South Kesteven outside Grantham, the question is less whether homes are needed than whether the field reads as part of the town or village and the community can be brought with the scheme.

A Call for Sites That Every Owner Has to Answer

The council's 2026 call for sites opened on 28 October 2026 with a closing date of 9 December 2026. It seeks land for homes, employment, mixed use, a new settlement and Traveller sites, gives no minimum size, and states that sites from earlier calls or the review will not be considered unless resubmitted.

The timetable that took effect on 28 October 2026 sets out the stages of a new plan for 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2046:

The call for sites therefore comes before the scoping consultation, and well before the content consultation of January 2028. Our plan-making guide for landowners explains the evidence a site needs at each stage.

Supply, Delivery and Reorganisation

In November 2026 the council's supply page still carried the statement at 1 April 2024, and the standard method, not the plan, stays the yardstick for the next one. The Housing Delivery Test 2025, published on 17 August 2026, put South Kesteven at 97%, against 95% in the result its March 2025 statement used. For South Kesteven to face an action plan its result would have to fall under 95%; a 20% buffer follows under 85%, and under 75% unmet need is treated as evidenced for policy S5.

The council's July 2026 decision weighed the unknown shape of local government reorganisation. On 29 October 2026 the government withdrew its July decision on new unitary councils for Lincolnshire, kept every proposal for the area under consideration with an outcome promised by early 2027, and said that elections due in May 2027 would be held for the councils that exist now, which leaves South Kesteven District Council as the planning authority for the new plan's early stages.

So a field against a market town or Larger Village can be tested now under the 2011 to 2036 plan and the shortfall, while a larger holding belongs in the 2026 call for sites, with its evidence built up for the content consultation of January 2028.