Selling Land in Rutland

• It sits next to, or is well related to, an existing town or village.
• A safe access onto a public road is possible, even if it needs work.
• Most of the land is outside the highest flood risk zone.
• It is not covered by a strong designation such as a Site of Special Scientific Interest.
• It is about 2 acres or more, or part of a larger holding.
• Everyone who owns it is willing to consider one clear, agreed price.

If your land does not tick every box, ask anyway. Many of the sites we take on have a problem to solve, whether that is access, drainage, a tenancy or an awkward boundary, and solving those problems is our job.

1. A first conversation. You call us or send the form on this page. We need only your postcode, your name and a phone number or email.
2. A free desktop review. Within a few days we look at your land, the planning position in Rutland and the routes open to it, and tell you plainly whether it suits us. The review is free and confidential, with no obligation.
3. Heads of terms and the option agreement. If it suits, we agree a price with you in writing, then the option agreement itself. We contribute to your solicitor's and land agent's fees, so it costs you nothing to get it done properly.
4. The planning work, at our cost. We pay for the surveys, the design, the planning application and any appeal. You carry on farming, grazing or letting the land as you do now.
5. Completion. If planning 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.

How selling land for development works, step by step gives the detail of each stage and how long it usually takes.

Rutland Water: A Ramsar Site, a Special Protection Area and a Working Reservoir

Rutland Water was made in the 1970s, and it has the largest surface area of any reservoir in England. Anglian Water runs it as a source of drinking water for hundreds of thousands of its customers in the East of England, and the nature reserve, about 1,000 acres of shoreline and shallow lagoons along nine miles of the western end, is managed by the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust.

For the planning system it is a site of international importance. The Ramsar Convention's own record lists it as designated on 4 October 1991, covering 1,360 hectares, a large artificial reservoir fringed by wetland where wintering waterbirds regularly exceed 20,000, with internationally important numbers of ducks among them. It is also a Special Protection Area for its gadwall and shoveler and a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and the plan's Rutland Water Area policy adds a local layer that covers the reservoir's setting, not only the water.

A scheme near the reservoir therefore has to show, through the Habitats Regulations, that it will not harm the birds or the water. In practice that comes down to how surface and foul water leave the site, how far new residents would add to visitor pressure on the shore, and how buildings sit in the view from the water.

Limestone Villages, Listed Buildings and Farmland

The council's spatial portrait of the county describes many attractive stone-built villages and two historic town centres, and counts 34 conservation areas and about 1,650 listed buildings with statutory protection, so the setting of a village core comes up on many edge sites. The same limestone is worked for cement, its best exposure lies near Ketton, and Heidelberg Materials at Ketton is one of the county's major employers. Farmland is largely grade 3, with some grade 2 in the south and pockets of grade 1 in the north, which matters because the best and most versatile land is weighed in any decision.

St George's Barracks and Its History

The barracks at North Luffenham began as RAF North Luffenham, which opened in December 1940 as a flying training school. It was chosen as a main Thor missile site in June 1958. From the end of 1959 it was one of 20 sites in the East of England armed with Thor missiles, and when Thor was phased out between April and August 1963 it was the last site to close. The Thor missile site is now listed at grade II*. The Royal Anglian Regiment reopened the station as St George's Barracks in 1998, and the main modifications to the new plan record that the barracks were expected to close in 2026.

The submitted plan named the barracks, and Woolfox beside the A1, as places for possible new settlements. The main modifications delete that policy and leave both sites to the early review of the plan, which means the future of the barracks will be settled through the 2026 to 2046 plan rather than the current one.

For an owner thinking of selling land in Rutland, the reservoir and the heritage of the villages are the two constraints that shape most schemes; neither rules a site out, but both decide how much of a field can be built on and how it must be laid out.

Rutland spent 23 years as a district of Leicestershire, and reorganisation as decided in July 2026 would put it back in one council with most of Leicestershire. On its Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland page, GOV.UK records a written ministerial statement of 16 July 2026 setting out the Secretary of State's decision to implement the proposal for two unitary councils across Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland, and states that secondary legislation, subject to Parliamentary approval, would be taken forward to abolish the existing councils and establish the new ones.

Leicester City Council's news of 16 July 2026 describes one council for Leicester, Oadby and Wigston and parts of Blaby, Charnwood and Harborough, and a second for the remaining area of Leicestershire, as well as Rutland, with the new councils taking over on 1 April 2028, the date it calls vesting day.

The government then wrote to council leaders. Its letter of 7 September 2026 withdrew the decisions made in March 2026 for four other areas and placed the programme as a whole under review, including the 14 decisions made in July, of which the Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland decision is one. It asked councils to cease work on implementing the July decisions and stated that the elections scheduled for May 2027 would go ahead on existing council boundaries. It sets no date for the review to conclude.

For a landowner this changes nothing today: Rutland County Council remains the planning authority, decides applications and is preparing the 2026 to 2046 plan. Our Leicestershire page covers the district councils on the far side of that boundary.