Selling Land in Lichfield

Lichfield District Council covers the cathedral city of Lichfield and the town of Burntwood, its two most populated places, with Fazeley on the edge of Tamworth and villages such as Alrewas, Shenstone, Whittington, Fradley and Elford across the rest. The Local Plan Strategy places the district in south-east Staffordshire, where it "abuts the West Midlands conurbation", and describes the A38 and A5 as "important routes to the north/south and east/west respectively". The valleys of the Trent and the Tame meet east of Alrewas.

• Green Belt in the south, room in the north. The Local Plan Strategy records that the West Midlands Green Belt has held "a substantial area within the south of the District" under restraint, while the less constrained north took growth at Fradley, Alrewas and Armitage with Handsacre. The 2024 consultation put about half the district in the Green Belt. Of its four new settlement options, Packington Hall Farm sits inside it, while Whitemoor and Brookhay east of the A38 and the Thorpe Estate north of Tamworth sit outside it.
• Delivery far above target. The Housing Delivery Test 2025 counted 2,178 homes against 937 required, a result of 232%; the council's record shows 581 net completions in 2019/20, a peak of 756 in 2022/23 and 597 in 2024/25.

The Local Plan Strategy 2008 to 2029, adopted on 17 February 2015, provides for "a minimum of 10,030 dwellings between 2008 and 2029". Core Policy 1 sends about 38% of it to Lichfield city and 13% to Burntwood, and names Alrewas, Armitage with Handsacre, Fazeley, Shenstone and Whittington as key rural settlements. Its strategic development allocations are South Lichfield (where the plan took Cricket Lane and the built part of Deans Slade Farm out of the Green Belt), East of Lichfield at Streethay, East of the Burntwood Bypass, Fradley and East Rugeley; the sixth growth area, a broad development location North of Tamworth, takes about 10%.

The Allocations document fixed the sites, and its inspector reported on 25 April 2019 that with main modifications it provided for 11,350 homes, "an excess of 13.16% over the LPS provision", a figure that "includes 500 dwellings to meet the needs arising from Rugeley and the same amount in relation to Tamworth". The Allocations document records Lichfield and North Warwickshire taking 500 homes each of Tamworth's shortfall, noting that Tamworth needed "a further 825 dwellings to be accommodated outside of the Borough", and places Lichfield's share within 1,129 homes on allocated sites north of Tamworth, led by Arkall Farm, which the inspector listed "for 1,000 dwellings".

The Promise to Birmingham That Led to the Withdrawn Plan

Paragraph 4.6 of the Strategy accepted in 2015 that Birmingham "will not be able to accommodate the whole of its new housing requirements for 2011-31 within its administrative boundary" and promised that, if provision was needed in Lichfield, "an early review or partial review of the Lichfield District Local Plan Strategy 2015 will be brought forward to address this matter". The Allocations document's Policy LPR committed the council to a full review addressing unmet need across the Greater Birmingham and Black Country housing market area, "inclusive of any unmet housing need arising from Tamworth Borough", and main modifications MM1 and MM2 required it to be submitted "by the end of December 2021". That review became the Local Plan 2040.

With the plan out of date and supply short, the route depends on where a site sits:

• Inside Lichfield, Burntwood or a village boundary. Policy S4 applies: approve unless the harm would substantially outweigh the benefits, whatever the supply figure.
• Countryside outside the Green Belt. Land beside a village in the less constrained north, such as Alrewas, Fradley or Armitage with Handsacre, or east of the A38 and north of Tamworth, can use policy S5, with the shortfall weighed as evidence of need.
• Green Belt land in the south of the district and on the edge of the city. The question is grey belt: whether the land contributes little to checking the spread of the conurbation or Tamworth, keeping places apart or preserving the setting of the historic city. Where it contributes little, the supply position meets the need test today, with the Golden Rules on larger schemes.
• Rural exception sites. Core Policy 1 supports limited affordable housing for local needs on small sites in the Green Belt.
• Previously developed land. Yards and depots are judged differently from open fields, and the council is "particularly keen to hear about brownfield" land.

For an open field that needs a Green Belt boundary redrawn, the new plan is the route. The call for sites, launched on 7 September 2026 with a closing date the council gives as 30 November 2026, invites housing sites of five homes or more and other uses; submission "does not guarantee that it will be selected". Our call for sites guide and grey belt guide explain both routes.