Selling Land in Telford and Wrekin

• Plots, yards, depots and backland inside the Telford built-up area or Newport.
• Land within or beside one of the plan's allocations, including the edges of the Sustainable Communities at Bratton, Muxton and Wheat Leasows.
• Parcels beside the rural settlements, suited to the limited development policy HO12 allows.
• Land at the edge of a village that could take a rural exception scheme of affordable homes.
• Larger holdings on the edge of Telford or Newport, outside the Strategic Green Gaps, for the next review of the plan.

Here the mining searches, the access and the ecology usually decide a site before the housing numbers do, and we pay for every part of that work, along with any application, under an option at a price we agree with you before we start, set above what the land is worth in its current use. You keep farming or using the land until completion, and if permission is not granted it stays yours and you owe us nothing. The how it works page sets out each stage.

• 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 council's Housing Land Supply Statement 2024 to 2029, published in December 2024, finds 6.02 years of deliverable land at 1 April 2024: 5,462 homes against a five-year requirement of 4,320, built on the 2018 plan's figure of 864 homes a year plus a 5% buffer. It counts small windfall sites only in the last two years, on an average of 30 homes a year since 2001. The inspectors give the borough's standard method figure as 881 homes a year, and on our arithmetic the same 5,462 homes would still give about 5.9 years against that figure plus the buffer.

The Position the Council Expects on Adoption

The council's Housing Delivery Topic Paper of June 2026 measures the five years from 2026/27 against the new plan's requirement, including the contribution to the Black Country. The inspectors' report of 25 September 2026 arrives at the same figures and sees no need for a buffer above 5%, given the council's delivery record.

How National Policy Reads Here

For land beyond the edge of a town or village, the national framework of August 2026 offers policy S5, which backs homes on a site well related to the settlement and served by infrastructure, where unmet need is evidenced. Need is treated as evidenced where a council's delivery result falls below 75%, and a supply short of five years is evidence of unmet need to be weighed, not an automatic finding. Telford and Wrekin is in neither position. Inside settlements, policy S4 expects approval unless the harm would substantially outweigh the benefits, whatever the housing numbers. Our guide to the 2026 framework explains both policies.

For a landowner, the plain reading is that a speculative application on an unallocated field has little to lean on here on either measure, while a plot inside Telford, Wellington or Newport can be judged on its own merits now.

Beyond the Telford built-up area, the inspectors describe a strategy of some growth in and on the edge of Newport and some housing growth in the key rural settlements, and they named Allscott as a defined rural settlement that new housing would support. The monitoring report shows the countryside taking 16 homes in 2011/12, 207 in 2021/22 and 197 in 2022/23, so rural building is no longer a trickle.

The inspectors found policy HO12, on new homes in the rural area, very unclear in places, especially on what counts as limited development, and modifications MM083 and MM084 make it effective. They also found that the plan named no rural settlements for the policy, relying instead on a separate technical paper, and modification MM137 adds that list to the plan as an appendix. The affordable exception policy, HO13, was clarified too.

In the order a review tests them, the routes are these:

1. Inside Telford or Newport. Plots, yards and backland are judged under policy S4.
2. Within an allocation. The principle is settled once the plan is adopted, and an application follows.
3. In a rural settlement. Policy HO12 sets the limited development a listed village can take.
4. As a rural exception. Policy HO13 provides for affordable homes on land that would not otherwise come forward.
5. An unallocated field. With no shortfall to weigh, most open land on the edge of the towns waits for the next review.

If you are selling farmland in the rural north of the borough, the modified HO12 wording and whether the nearest village is on the council's list of rural settlements will decide more than the size of the field. Our farmland page describes the agricultural land we take on.

The report to Cabinet for its meeting of 12 November 2026 asks members to accept the inspectors' recommendations, which bring 147 main modifications, and to recommend that Full Council adopt the Telford & Wrekin Local Plan 2021 to 2041 on 26 November 2026. The 2018 plan remains the adopted plan until Full Council decides. The report says adoption would withdraw it in its entirety and put the five-year supply at 6.2 years, and it warns that delay would undermine the council's land supply position.

A New Yardstick, Then the Standard Method Again

Once the new plan is adopted, its own requirement, adjusted for the homes built ahead of it, becomes the measure of supply, and national policy replaces that requirement with the standard method once the plan is more than five years old.

Delivery Far Above Every Threshold

The Housing Delivery Test 2025, published on 17 August 2026, records 4,425 homes built against 1,430 required, and the test is run again each year. At 309%, Telford and Wrekin is far above the 95% line that triggers an action plan, the 85% line where the buffer rises to 20% and the 75% line at which policy S5 treats unmet need as evidenced.

The Call for Sites, and What to Prepare Now

The council's call for sites page records two exercises, which closed in January 2021 and October 2022, but gives no date for the next. Our guide to calls for sites and local plans explains how a site moves from submission to allocation.

• Sites inside the towns and villages can be looked at now, as policy S4 and the rural policy apply whatever the supply position.
• Land inside an allocation is ready for an application once the plan is adopted.
• Open fields elsewhere are best prepared for the next call for sites, with the mining, access and landscape evidence in hand before it opens.