Selling Land in Spelthorne

• Enclosed Green Belt parcels next to Ashford, Sunbury, Shepperton, Staines or Stanwell, mostly in Flood Zone 1.
• Former yards, depots and commercial sites with a lawful non-agricultural use.
• Land within walking distance of a railway station with a frequent service.
• Urban sites such as large gardens, garage courts and older commercial buildings.
• Land that could be considered in the council's review of its new plan.

Many sites here need flood, ecology, noise and highways work together. We pay for all of it, and any appeal, so none of that cost falls on you. Our page on brownfield land and yards explains what we look for in previously developed sites.

• 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 plan had one of the more turbulent examinations in the South East. It was submitted on 25 November 2022 and hearings opened on 23 May 2023, but on 6 June 2023 the council asked the inspector to pause them. In September 2023 the housing minister wrote to the council expressing concern that it might withdraw the plan, and the council then asked for the pause to run until a revised national framework was published. Only on 24 October 2024 did the council vote to resume, and the remaining hearings finished on 18 February 2025.

The inspector's report, dated 4 March 2026 and announced by the council the next day, found the plan sound with main modifications. It raised the requirement from 618 to 631 homes a year, 10,726 over the plan period, against an identified supply of 9,900. The council's Green Belt FAQs put the Green Belt allocations at 24.81 hectares, 0.7% of the Green Belt, for about 740 homes. At the final stage the allocation at the former Bulldog Nurseries in Town Lane, Ashford, about 24 homes, was deleted after its owners confirmed it was no longer available, a reminder that a site only stays in a plan while its owner is committed to seeing it built.

Five Town Centre Sites Lost to Flooding

The report also deleted five allocations in Staines because each had a high risk of flooding that could not be mitigated: Bridge Street Car Park with Hanover House and the Sea Cadet building, the Surrey County Council buildings in Burges Way, the Fairways Day Centre at Knowle Green, Riverside Car Park and the Thames Lodge Hotel. Eleven more sites were made unavailable for development until a safe route in and out can be kept open during a 1% annual chance flood, with an allowance for climate change. A separate Staines Development Framework, a masterplan for the town, had gone to the inspector with the plan, but the report found it had not been finalised or independently examined and removed every reference to it.

The Immediate Review

Policy ST3 requires a partial review straight after adoption, because the 9,900 identified homes fall short of the full requirement. The inspector lists what it must cover: reassessing the housing requirement and allocating more land if needed, reviewing employment needs and the needs of Gypsies, Travellers and Travelling Showpeople, and checking each policy against national policy. On 18 June 2026 the council's Environment and Sustainability Committee approved publication of a statutory notice of intention to begin plan-making. From April 2027 the work will pass to West Surrey Council. For a Spelthorne site, the evidence that tends to decide things is flood modelling and proof the owner will sell, and when to submit each is covered in our guide to calls for sites and plan reviews.

Does Spelthorne Have a Five-Year Supply?

Two council documents, three months apart, give different answers. The December 2025 monitoring report says the council was unable to demonstrate a five-year supply of housing land. The March 2026 land supply statement, measured forward from 1 April 2025, says it can show 5.3 years: 4,007 deliverable homes against a five-year requirement of 3,786, which is 631 homes a year plus a 20% buffer, a margin of about 220 homes. The inspector's report says a deliverable five-year supply can be shown at adoption. The likely reason is timing: the monitoring report was written before the plan was adopted, and adoption brings its allocations into the supply. The March statement also bases its buffer on a delivery result of 68%, an earlier measurement than the 33% published in August 2026. For a landowner the difference matters less than it seems. The 33% result means the borough is treated as having evidenced unmet need whatever the supply figure, and the statement itself says the position will be reassessed in full through the review.

None of these rules a site out on its own, but together they explain why so little land in Spelthorne has come forward. Our flood risk guide sets out how the sequential and exception tests work.

The review now has an end point as well as a start. The council's June 2026 committee report records the inspector's requirement for an updated or replacement plan to be submitted for examination no later than two years from adoption, which on a March 2026 adoption means March 2028. West Surrey Council takes charge on 1 April 2027, roughly halfway through that period, so the councillors elected to it in May 2026 will steer the later stages and put their name to the submission.

The Delivery Figures to Look Out For

Each Housing Delivery Test covers three financial years, and Housing Delivery Test 2025, released on 17 August 2026, spans April 2022 to March 2025. The next edition should move forward by a year, dropping 2022/23, the weakest of the three on the council's own count, and adding 2025/26. The council's monitoring report, last issued in December 2025, is the first place to look for 2025/26 completions. Whatever the next result, anything under 85% keeps the 20% buffer the March 2026 supply statement already uses, so the supply sums will shift only if completions or allocations do.

Evidence Ready in Time for a March 2028 Submission

Taken together, the next eighteen months are the working window. Sites for the review have to be assessed, consulted on and justified in time for a March 2028 submission, and in Spelthorne the flood modelling alone can take months. Land that was left out in March 2026, or never put forward, now has a defined route back in with a date attached. We would rather start that work early than compress it into the months after West Surrey arrives.