Selling Land in Mansfield

The Local Plan Review runs from 2023 to 2043, replacing the adopted plan's 325 homes a year with a need of 495, worked out by the government's standard method. The three strategic urban extensions of the 2020 plan, at Pleasley Hill Farm, Jubilee Way and Berry Hill, carry over into it. The council's companion document to the publication draft, dated September 2026, sets out how that need is met:

About four fifths of the total is already spoken for. The new land the review has to find is at least 2,034 homes over twenty years, and the cabinet report says the sites in the publication draft provide for approximately 10,800 homes in all, a buffer above the 9,900 need to allow for sites that stall. The same report plans for 41.06 hectares of employment land. Competition for the new allocations is stiff. As the first draft was prepared for consultation in 2025, officers told councillors that the land availability assessment had identified 223 sites, and that 159 of them met the criteria for further testing, with room for about 16,000 homes between them.

From Draft to Publication

The review has already been consulted on twice, from August to October 2023 and as a draft plan from 30 May to 17 July 2025. The publication draft is the council's final position before examination. The council's overview and scrutiny committee endorsed it on 1 September 2026 without recommending changes, and on 15 September 2026 cabinet recommended it for approval by full council, by three votes to one, noting that the comments received would be submitted with it. Full council was due to consider it on 24 September 2026, and once approved the draft is published for comment over at least six weeks. Comments go to the inspector rather than back into another draft, so a site left out now has to make its case on soundness. Because the review is being prepared under the transitional arrangements for the old plan-making system, it will be examined against the March 2025 version of the national framework, not the one published in August 2026.

With the supply above five years and no Green Belt, the routes here differ from those around Nottingham. In practice there are five:

1. Through the review. Land in the plan, whether carried over or newly allocated, has the clearest path. Land left out can be argued for at the publication stage, with evidence on access, drainage, ecology and landscape.
2. Inside the settlement boundaries. Gaps, yards and larger gardens within Mansfield, Mansfield Woodhouse, Forest Town or Market Warsop fall under policy S4 of the national framework. It starts from support, and a refusal needs harms that would substantially outweigh what the scheme offers.
3. Previously developed land. The review counts 919 homes on brownfield allocations, and a former depot or works yard in the urban area is judged on its own merits whatever the supply. Our brownfield and yards page covers the sites we look at.
4. Small sites in Warsop parish. The adopted plan aims a tenth of the district's growth at Warsop parish, so modest plots against Market Warsop or the villages can suit smaller schemes, as described on our paddocks and small sites page.
5. The next review. The council keeps its land availability assessment form open, so land not yet in the frame can be put forward for the plan that follows.

Grey belt, which does so much work around Nottingham, does not arise here, because there is no Green Belt to assess. The call for sites and local plans guide explains how a site moves from submission to allocation.

The Publication Consultation

The council's draft Local Development Scheme for 2026, which went to cabinet with the publication draft on 15 September 2026, places the publication stage in September to November 2026, with the timetable after that as follows:

Submission matters most. A plan prepared under the old system must reach the government by 31 December 2026. Cabinet amended its recommendation at the meeting: the plan and the comments on it are to be submitted by that date unless the outcome of a legal case involving Oxford City Council is known and requires otherwise, and if that outcome is still unknown, the plan comes back to full council for approval before submission in December. The draft scheme is plain about the stakes: if the December 2026 deadline is missed, the work so far would be reissued under the new plan-making system, and consultation would likely need to be repeated. Officers told cabinet that moving to the new system would put adoption back to July 2029 at the earliest.

The Next Supply Statement

The council reports its supply each year in its housing monitoring report. The statement at 1 April 2025 counted five months at the plan's old rate; the next will measure all five years against the standard method. We make no forecast, but for a council above five years that is the figure to watch. If the review is adopted, its own figure of 495 a year becomes the measure instead.

The Next Delivery Test

The Housing Delivery Test 2025 came out on 17 August 2026, and a new edition follows each year. At 134%, nothing in the test bites on Mansfield. For reference, an action plan starts at under 95%, the 20% buffer at under 85%, and at under 75% policy S5 would count unmet need as shown. The dip to 297 completions in 2024/25 is inside the latest measurement already, so the next edition will turn partly on how 2025/26 compares with the year it replaces.

Reorganisation on Hold

Cabinet was told that the publication draft had been drafted before the government announced that local government reorganisation was paused. The minute records the uncertainty that leaves: whether a plan made under the new system, which could not be adopted before July 2029, would be adopted by Mansfield District Council or by a proposed new Nottinghamshire unitary council. It links that uncertainty to wasted work and a longer spell without a valid plan if the council delayed, and cabinet backed pressing on under the current rules. For now, Mansfield District Council remains the body taking the review to examination.

Who Decides Applications From 31 October 2026

National reforms also change how Mansfield decides applications. Full council was due on 24 September 2026 to adopt changes to its constitution, effective from 31 October 2026, that bring in the national scheme of delegation, which new regulations require by that date. Minor housing schemes of one to nine homes on sites under half a hectare will always be decided by officers. Larger applications go to the 11-member planning applications committee only where a nominated officer and the committee's chair or vice chair both agree that the scheme raises an issue of significance to the local area or a significant planning matter, and councillors lose the right to call applications in. The report adds that a scheme broadly in line with a detailed site allocation and national policy is unlikely to raise such a matter, which makes a place in the review worth more still.

What This Means for Timing

• Land in the publication draft can be prepared for an application now, so it is ready soon after adoption.
• Land left out has its best chance in a well evidenced response during the publication consultation, which the council's draft timetable places between September and November 2026.
• Sites inside the towns and brownfield land do not depend on the review and can be looked at straight away.

For a sense of the months involved at each step, see how long planning takes.