Selling Land in Tandridge

• Paddocks and small fields on the edge of Caterham, Oxted, Warlingham, Lingfield, Smallfield and the other larger settlements, especially where homes wrap around two or more sides.
• Former nurseries, yards, depots and equestrian sites with lawful buildings or hardstanding, in or outside the Green Belt.
• Fields a short walk from a station with a regular train service.
• Sites with a safe access onto a road, or a realistic way of securing one.
• Larger holdings that could contribute to the growth the new Local Plan has to find.

Small sites count here. Many of the best Tandridge opportunities are an acre or two behind a village street rather than open farmland, as our page on paddocks and small sites explains. Where we take a site on, we pay for every report, application and any appeal, and you keep using the land until completion.

• 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.

In most districts, a delivery result this far below 75% would make a large number of edge-of-village fields worth putting forward under policy S5 of the national framework, which supports homes on land well related to a settlement where housing need is unmet. That route does not apply in the Green Belt. With 94% of Tandridge in the Green Belt, the practical effect of the score is narrower, and it works through three doors:

1. Land inside settlements drawn out of the Green Belt. Where a town or village is inset, policy S4 says development inside it should be approved unless the harm substantially outweighs the benefits. Long back gardens, garage blocks and underused commercial plots all fall here.
2. Grey belt. A field that does little to check the spread of London, to keep towns apart or to protect a historic setting can be grey belt. The council's own Local Plan page points to the change in national policy that allows Green Belt to be reclassified as grey belt. Homes on grey belt also need an evidenced unmet need, and with the council's own supply at 2.17 years, the Hurst Green inspector found that need was there. Schemes must then meet the Golden Rules.
3. Previously developed land. Former nurseries with permanent buildings, haulage and builders' yards, and redundant commercial sites have their own routes in Green Belt policy, provided the buildings or hardstanding have a lawful use.

The Golden Rules require a higher share of affordable housing than normal, plus the infrastructure and public green space a scheme needs. On a paddock behind Lingfield or Smallfield they can take a noticeable share of the land, so layout and costings are worked out together. Our grey belt guide explains the tests in full.

For the owner of a long garden, garage block or underused commercial plot inside an inset town or village, the first of those doors is usually the most direct route to a sale, because the Green Belt tests do not apply there.

Inside the Surrey Hills and High Weald National Landscapes, major development faces the highest bar in national policy, and land just outside them is often judged on how it would look from the protected landscape. In the High Weald the concern is often small fields, hedges and historic lanes, and a well-designed scheme that keeps those features has a far better chance than one that ignores them.

The Surrey Hills boundary may be redrawn. The boundary variation order Natural England submitted on 7 September 2026 includes proposed additions named the Woldingham Valleys and Limpsfield. It has no effect until the government confirms it, but landscape evidence there will be read with it in mind.

The Ashdown Forest Zone

Part of the district lies within the 7 kilometre zone around the Ashdown Forest Special Protection Area. Dormansland's neighbourhood plan group has written the requirement into its policy DNP10: residential schemes in the zone must avoid and mitigate their impact, through a bespoke area of natural green space, a contribution to strategic access management and monitoring, or other measures agreed with the council and Natural England. That plan is not among those the council lists as made, but the requirement stands regardless. It is a cost to plan for, not a reason to rule a site out, and on a large enough holding part of the land can provide the green space itself.

The government publishes the Housing Delivery Test once a year, and the latest, the Housing Delivery Test 2025, arrived on 17 August 2026. While the district stays below 75%, national policy treats its need for homes as unmet, and because each result averages three years of building, one good year moves it only part of the way. With almost the whole district in the Green Belt, that finding and the short supply of sites work mainly through the grey belt tests and the weight given to new homes.

What the Hurst Green Appeal Tells Us

On 17 September 2026 an inspector dismissed an appeal for up to 132 homes on land south of Warren Lane, Hurst Green. As Planning Geek reported it, the inspector found the site was grey belt and gave substantial weight to the market and affordable homes. The decision letter records that the council did not dispute its lack of a five-year supply. Its Annual Monitoring Report of December 2025 puts the supply at 2.17 years at 1 October 2025: 2,158 deliverable homes against 4,964 needed, the standard method's 827 a year plus a 20% buffer. The appeal failed because the scheme could not show that residents would be free of unacceptable odour from the Oxted Wastewater Treatment Works. The principle was won and the detail lost, which is why we commission the specialist reports before anything is submitted.

The Plan, and the Handover to East Surrey

The council says the new plan is being prepared under the system brought in by the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act, which aims to cut plan-making to about 30 months, and its Local Plan page now links a revised Local Development Scheme dated June 2026. It also says every existing plan and its evidence will carry over to East Surrey and stay in place until replaced, so the 2008 Core Strategy and the 2014 detailed policies will still govern decisions after April 2027 until the new plan is adopted.

A field that may already be grey belt can be tested through an application while supply stays this short. Land that needs the plan to release it is best put in front of the council before the draft plan that names sites is written.