Selling Land in North Northamptonshire

• Fields of 2 acres or more on the edges of Corby, Kettering, Wellingborough or Rushden.
• Land beside Desborough, Rothwell, Raunds, Thrapston, Irthlingborough or Oundle that backs onto existing homes.
• Small plots within the larger villages, suited to self-build or a few homes.
• Former yards and commercial land within or next to a town.
• Land mostly in Flood Zone 1, above the Nene flood plain.

Our work starts with access, the question that decided Barton Road, then drainage and ecology, and every pound of it is ours. The option price is fixed when we sign, pitched above what the field is worth as it stands, and the land stays in your use throughout. Should the planning fail, the field remains yours and nothing is owed. How it works sets out each step.

• 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.

The clearest test of the council's supply came at an inquiry into 58 homes on land at Barton Road, Barton Seagrave, an open field the inspector placed inside Kettering's urban area. The council put its supply at 5.24 years, the appellant at 3.94. In his decision of 7 January 2026 the inspector worked through the disputed sites and settled between the two:

Much of what he took out came from the big urban extensions: 320 homes at Hanwood Park, where the council's projections struck him as overly optimistic, 180 at Rushden East, whose application had been undetermined since 2020, and 200 at Stanton Cross on build rates.

A Shortfall Found, and the Appeal Still Dismissed

The appeal failed all the same. The inspector was not satisfied the new access onto Barton Road could be made safely and gave that harm very significant weight, adding harm to the landscape and to the setting of the Grade I listed St Botolph's Church. Even with the balance tilted towards housing, he found the harm significantly and demonstrably outweighed the benefits. A supply below five years opens the door, but the site still has to work.

For an owner selling land on the edge of Kettering or another growth town, Barton Road is the example to learn from: settle a safe access first, and the shortfall can then carry its weight.

In July 2026 the council's own committee report on a Dingley application accepted the inspector's finding and said the council "is currently calculating its own revised land supply position". Until a new figure is published, the inspector's is the latest tested one.

What That Means Under National Policy

Policy S5 of the August 2026 National Planning Policy Framework treats a supply short of five years as evidence of unmet housing need. That is not an automatic finding in favour of any field: the land must relate well to a town or village, be capable of being served by roads, schools and drainage, and cause no harm that substantially outweighs the benefits. With the delivery result at 108%, the supply is the only part of the numbers doing any work here.

The strategy ranks places, with growth towns at the top as the focus for major investment and market towns below them serving their own hinterlands. It also answers the question a shortfall raises. The strategy says that if extra sites are needed to keep a five-year supply in a district, "these should be identified at the Growth Town followed, if necessary and relevant, by the Market Towns within that district". East Northamptonshire's Part 2 plan shows how that works on the ground: Rushden is the growth town and the focus for major development, Higham Ferrers, Irthlingborough, Raunds, Thrapston and Oundle are market towns, eight larger freestanding villages can take larger schemes where a defined local need is shown, and elsewhere the restraint villages and open countryside are limited to conversions and rural diversification.

Further down the order, the countryside is guarded closely, shortfall or not. Dingley is a Category C village, which the council treats as having no village boundary, so land there counts as open countryside. When three self-build homes were proposed on its edge, the July 2026 committee report recommended refusal. It accepted the inspector's finding of about 4.6 years and a self-build register of 175 entries against 67 plots permitted, yet concluded that self-build status "is not in itself a justification for development in unsustainable countryside locations". A shortfall helps land that relates well to a town or a larger village; it does far less for a plot in a small village.

1. Inside the growth towns and market towns. Plots and backland inside the built-up edge fall under policy S4, whose starting point is yes, with a refusal justified only where the harm would substantially outweigh the benefits.
2. On the edge of a growth town. With the supply short, well related land here has the strongest S5 case, and the strategy points extra growth to these towns first.
3. On the edge of a market town. The same policy applies, with scale matched to the town and its services.
4. In the larger villages. Infill and small schemes for local needs are the usual routes; in the smallest villages and open countryside, the conversion of existing buildings.

The council is preparing a North Northamptonshire Local Plan for 2024 to 2045 under the new plan-making system. Its call for sites ran from 20 May to 1 July 2026 alongside the scoping consultation, and the council says submissions will be assessed using its land availability methodology, which scores sites against 47 constraints. The published timetable, in force since 27 April 2026, sets out what follows:

The autumn consultation will show which way the plan is leaning, and evidence for a site does most good if it is ready by then. What each consultation stage asks of a landowner is set out in our guide to local plan consultations.

A Recalculated Supply

The council's housing land supply page, last updated in March 2026, says it is recalculating and has prepared an interim housing position statement, to give "a clear and consistent approach to decision making on new housing proposals" until it can show five years or adopts the new plan. The revised figure will either confirm a shortfall or claim five years again. Which it will be, we do not predict. A shortfall keeps S5 in play for well related land; a return to five years would point most unallocated fields back to the new plan.

Delivery is not a factor for now. The Housing Delivery Test 2025, published on 17 August 2026, is renewed every year, and at 108% nothing follows from it. Under 95% the council would need an action plan; under 85% its supply buffer would rise to 20%, widening any shortfall; under 75% unmet need would be taken as existing under S5 regardless of supply.

Reorganisation is already behind the council. With the change to a unitary council completed in 2021, the council running the October and November 2026 consultation is the one expected to take the plan through to adoption.