Selling Land in Ipswich

The scoping report for the council's new plan gives the borough an area of 39.5 square kilometres and a population of 140,274 in 2024. The core strategy says the borough "has a tightly drawn administrative boundary, which constrains the practical options for meeting needs for development".

• Three neighbours share the town's edge. Babergh, Mid Suffolk and East Suffolk border the borough and form one housing market area with it; our Suffolk page covers them.
• The lowest delivery result in Suffolk. The Housing Delivery Test 2025 counted 677 homes built against 1,068 required, a result of 63%. Below 75%, national policy treats unmet housing need in the borough as evidenced.
• Building on brownfield already. Of the 275 homes completed in 2024/25, 84.7% were on previously developed land, and the scoping report counts 128 sites on the brownfield land register.
• Two rivers. The fluvial Gipping becomes the tidal Orwell in the town, and beside it 301 hectares of low-lying land form the IP-One area, taking in the town centre and Waterfront, with its own area action plan.

Policy CS7 of the Core Strategy sets "a housing requirement of at least 8,280 dwellings" for 2018 to 2036: 460 a year, the standard method figure of its day, and the borough's share of at least 34,200 across the four councils. The requirement is stepped "to reflect the period when delivery at the strategic site of Ipswich Garden Suburb is expected to take place". The inspectors' report of February 2022 accepted 300 a year to March 2024, as no other sites had been put forward to lift delivery before then, and raised the later step from the council's 518 to 540.

The plan's largest site is the Garden Suburb, north of the town: about 3,500 homes on 195 hectares of greenfield land, planned as three neighbourhoods, Henley Gate, Fonnereau and Red House. Policy CS10 expects at least 3,295 of the homes within the plan period, and the examined trajectory puts them at 241 to 288 a year from 2024/25 to 2030/31, short of 540 on its own. The council's Garden Suburb news page records construction starting on phase 3b at Henley Gate in August 2026. For Red House, after meetings on 10 December 2025 and 7 January 2026, the planning committee resolved that up to 1,020 homes be permitted once a section 106 agreement is completed.

Much of the rest of the supply comes from land the plan never allocated. Of the 2,157 deliverable homes in the monitoring report, 1,044 have permission on unallocated sites against 723 on allocated sites. Outside the IP-One area, the plan's residential allocations under policy SP2 are eight small sites totalling 2.99 hectares and 160 homes. The plan allocates sites of 0.2 hectares or ten homes (0.1 hectares in the centre); smaller sites "may come forward" as windfall.

Most of the borough is in Flood Zone 1, but land along the Orwell and the Gipping falls into Flood Zones 2 and 3, and the tidal barrier in the New Cut protects "over 2,400 homes and 300 businesses". The scoping report dates its commissioning to 2018 and the Core Strategy records the works "completed February 2019", one likely dating first operation and the other the finished works; nothing turns on the difference. The council's Development and Flood Risk SPD, adopted on 27 July 2022, says the barrier is designed for the "design flood" event with climate change allowed for to 2118, so tidal flooding in the town is "a residual risk", arising only if the defences are breached or the barrier fails to operate.

The plan itself accepts that "there is no realistic alternative to locating some development in Flood Zone 3". Central and Waterfront sites are therefore not ruled out by the flood map, but each has to pass the sequential test, and where the exception test applies the homes must be shown safe for their lifetime. Our flood risk guide explains the zones and the two tests.

The Housing Delivery Test 2025 covered April 2022 to March 2025; the next edition drops the first of those years and adds 2025/26. A result of 75% or more would end the finding that need is evidenced under policy S5, though a supply short of five years would still be evidence to weigh, and only 85% or more would let the buffer return to 5%. The council has said it will move its supply to a 1 April 2026 base, which, with delivery below 85%, carries the 20% buffer.

The New Plan, Gateway by Gateway

The council's Local Plan Timetable, in effect from 25 June 2026 and reviewed monthly, sets out the new plan for 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2045. Dates on the first of a month are indicative:

The stage that matters most for land is the content and evidence consultation of September 2027, when the council first says what the plan will contain.

Reorganisation Withdrawn, and the Red House Permission

On 7 September 2026 the government withdrew its decision on Suffolk and said the May 2027 elections will go ahead on existing boundaries, so the borough council still prepares the plan and decides applications. The other decision to watch is Red House: when the permission resolved on in January 2026 is issued bears on how much of the Garden Suburb later supply statements count, and on Humber Doucy Lane, which policy ISPA4 ties to "primary school capacity on the Red House element of Ipswich Garden Suburb" unless its landowner agrees a school with the county council. For a landowner, a site inside the town can be looked at now; edge land is best prepared, with habitats and flood evidence, before the 2027 consultation.