Selling Land in North Warwickshire

Richborough appealed after the council did not decide its outline application for up to 110 homes on land south of Warton Recreation Ground, off Orton Road. The inquiry opened on 2 December 2025, and on 16 February 2026 the inspector allowed the appeal.

On supply, the inspector accepted the stepped requirement and the 20% buffer but not the council's count. The council had produced no evidence from developers or landowners that its allocated sites would start within five years, and the decision concludes that supply was "closest to the Appellant's calculations of 0.82 years rather than the Council's position". The council also conceded at the inquiry that the plan's reserve sites would not deliver homes within five years either.

Why a Category 4 Village Took 110 Homes

Warton is a Category 4 settlement under policy LP2 of the 2021 plan, where the plan usually looks for schemes of no more than ten homes. The inspector gave that conflict very limited weight, finding that "the very severe shortfall in the Housing Land Supply means that L2 is fundamentally not delivering the necessary houses in the Borough". On the other side of the scales sat 44 affordable homes, in a borough the decision records as needing 133 affordable homes a year while only 17 were built in 2023/24, and 74 applicants on the housing waiting list who had asked to live in Warton.

The National Policy That Applies Now

The same shortfall now feeds policy S5 of the August 2026 framework, which counts a supply of less than five years as a sign that the need for homes is not being met and supports housing beyond a settlement's limits to meet it. The council's own questions and answers on the new plan accept as much, saying that without a five-year supply, applications on sites not allocated in a local plan "are more likely to receive permission". Nothing about that is automatic. The land has to sit properly against a town or village rather than out in open country, and the roads, school places and drainage must be able to take the extra households. Inside the built-up areas, policy S4 sets the presumption the other way, so a scheme there should be refused only if its harm clearly and substantially exceeds its benefits.

The council's Issues and Options report of October 2025 accepted, as the Warton decision records, that the sites along the A5 were allocated on the basis of access improvements whose funding was then withdrawn as costs rose. The draft plan explains that the 2021 requirement included provision for unmet need from Coventry, Tamworth and Birmingham, with a trajectory that assumed the A5 works, and says that this delivery "is now in doubt". It keeps the allocations all the same, on the basis that the improvements can still be developer led while bids for grant support continue. At Warton, the appellant's evidence disputed the council's count on allocations including 250 homes north west of Atherstone, 100 east of Polesworth and Dordon, and 300 west of Robey's Lane, which had outline permission from June 2025 but no reserved matters application.

What the Draft Plan Proposes

Consulted on from 9 July to 19 August 2026, the draft plan runs from 2025 to 2045 and plans for 7,280 homes, 364 a year, the government's standard method figure. It records about 4,952 homes from the 2021 plan still to be built, and notes that no council has yet told it of a housing shortfall this plan must take on, while accepting that may change as neighbouring plans progress. Its settlement hierarchy is the map most landowners will want:

• Market towns: Atherstone with Mancetter, Polesworth with Dordon, and Coleshill, where the draft expects smaller growth because the Green Belt wraps around the town.
• Local service centres: Baddesley with Grendon, Hartshill with Ansley Common, New and Old Arley, Kingsbury and Water Orton.
• Smaller villages: among them Ansley, Austrey, Curdworth, Fillongley, Hurley, Newton Regis, Shustoke, Warton, Whitacre Heath and Wood End.
• Everywhere else: development not generally acceptable, save in special cases such as rural workers' homes or rural exception sites.

Two changes in the draft matter at the edge of a village. Policy LP2 supports development inside the boundaries of settlements in Categories 1 to 4 in principle, and says development directly next to those boundaries may also be acceptable where it is proportionate to the settlement and complies with the plan and national policy, Green Belt protection included. And policy LP9 asks major schemes for at least 30% affordable housing, rising to 40% on greenfield sites previously in farming use, a figure that comes off what a field can support.

Where the Draft Puts the Homes

Chapter 14 of the draft shows how the 7,280 homes would be found, counting from 1 April 2025:

That leaves a margin of just 113 homes over the requirement with its buffer. The largest sites are carried forward from 2021: 1,675 homes east of Polesworth and Dordon within the plan period, at least 1,280 north west of Atherstone off Whittington Lane, 450 south of Coleshill Road at Ansley Common and 388 on land north of Ansley Common. Among the new allocations are up to 283 homes west of Tamworth Road in Kingsbury, which already had a resolution to grant permission, 239 east of Packington Lane in Coleshill, a Green Belt release the study did not class as grey belt, 95 on the edge of Tamworth off Overwoods Road, and the Warton appeal site, allocated for its 110 homes. At Hurley, a small field south of Knowle Hill is released because the study found it to be grey belt.

Two back-up lists follow. Reserve sites, including phase 3 at Dairy House Farm beside the A5, are released only if forecast supply falls below 5.5 years and their access, infrastructure or flooding issues are solved. Seventeen contingent sites for 836 homes, from the edges of Atherstone and Coleshill to villages such as Austrey and Wood End, come forward only if the strategic transport assessment shows a shortfall caused by the A5's capacity, with no prospect of improvements within ten years.

Parish plans matter too. The monitoring report lists neighbourhood plans made for Arley, Austrey, Coleshill, Fillongley, Hartshill, Mancetter, Water Orton, Dordon and Nether Whitacre, and Polesworth's went to referendum in March 2025. The Warwickshire page sets the borough beside its neighbours.

From 29 September 2026, a Different Yardstick

A plan's own housing figure is the test for supply only while the plan is less than five years old, which is why both sides at Warton used the 2021 requirement. After that, local housing need under the government's standard method takes over. The plan was adopted on 29 September 2021, so from 29 September 2026 the stepped figures of 700, 725 and 775 a year stop being the measure. The draft plan puts local housing need at 364 a year. The 20% buffer came from the 2023 delivery test; a result of 164% in the Housing Delivery Test 2025 is far clear of the 85% mark, so the next calculation should carry the ordinary 5% instead.

A lower yardstick does not settle the answer by itself: at Warton the inspector found much of the council's count unsupported, and any new statement will be tested the same way. We make no forecast. The practical point is that well placed land is worth looking at while the present shortfall holds, and other land belongs in the review.

The Plan Review Timetable

The council's Local Development Scheme had the final draft going to a council sub-committee in September 2026 and submission in November 2026. The Warton inspector called a December 2026 submission "very ambitious", as there was then no sustainability appraisal, no strategic transport assessment and no published outcome from the call for sites. The council has since published a July 2026 sustainability appraisal and its 2026 land availability assessment, and says the transport assessment and the second stage of the Green Belt study will come with the final draft consultation, which it expects in October 2026. What a site needs at each of these stages is covered in call for sites and local plans.

The Next Delivery Test

At 164%, the borough faces none of the yearly test's consequences. A future result below 85% would bring the 20% buffer back, and one below 75% would make unmet need a given under policy S5 whatever the supply figure.

Reorganisation, on Hold

In July 2026 the government confirmed plans for a new North Warwickshire Council, covering this borough with Nuneaton and Bedworth and Rugby, from 1 April 2028, as the borough council's reorganisation page sets out. That has since been paused while the government reviews whether the process would stand up in law, and Warwickshire County Council has confirmed that voters will elect members of the existing councils in May 2027. The borough council remains the body writing the plan.

What This Means for Timing

• Land against a settlement outside the Green Belt is worth reviewing now, while the shortfall and the Warton decision carry their full weight.
• Green Belt land turns on whether it is grey belt; we can assess a parcel before the council's second-stage study appears.
• Larger or less well placed land is best aimed at the final draft plan and its examination in 2027.