Selling Land in North Warwickshire

• Fields outside the Green Belt that share a boundary with the houses of a town or village, as the Warton site did.
• Green Belt land, around Coleshill or elsewhere, that is hemmed in by roads, the railway or existing buildings.
• Former yards, depots, works and other land with lawful buildings or hardstanding.
• Land beside towns over the borough boundary, outside the Green Belt and the Strategic Gap.
• Larger holdings that could be allocated as the plan to 2045 reaches its final stages.

What wins permission here is evidence: proof that homes can be built within five years, a safe access onto roads that are already busy, drainage, and highway capacity near the A5. We commission and fund every part of it, under an option agreement at a price settled at the start, pitched above the land's present value. Farming or other use of the land continues as normal until completion, and should permission never come, the land is still yours and there is nothing to pay. Our how it works page takes you through the stages in order.

• 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 two measures face in opposite directions. The delivery test looks back at homes completed in the three years to March 2025. The five-year supply looks forward, and the 2021 plan asks for far more after 2025 than before it. The inspector who examined the plan built in a stepped requirement: 203 homes a year to 2016, 265 a year to 2024, 390 in 2024/25, then 700, 725 and finally 775 a year from 2027 to 2033. Building has not followed that climb. The monitoring report records 374 completions in 2021/22, 170 in 2022/23, 278 in 2023/24 and 231 in 2024/25.

The council's statement on its five-year supply calculations, presented to its Planning and Development Board on 6 October 2025, does the sums two ways. The appellant's supply witness at the Warton inquiry set out a third:

The monitoring report carries the first column, rounded to 1.5 years, as the council's headline. The 20% buffer is there because the borough scored 81% in the Housing Delivery Test published in December 2024, under the 85% mark at which national policy adds it. And the count of 2,207 deliverable homes was 1,667 lower than a year before, mainly because the council took 1,514 homes on allocated sites out of it.

That removal is the detail to note before selling land here: the shortfall comes from allocated sites the council no longer counts as deliverable, which leaves room for land that can show it will be built.

The Green Belt study that LUC completed for the council in December 2025 describes a belt of farmland crossed by major roads and railways, with villages, industrial estates and the historic town of Coleshill, set between Birmingham, Coventry, Nuneaton and Tamworth. Policy S5 does not apply inside it. What the shortfall does there is meet the need test for grey belt: land that does not strongly serve the Green Belt's purposes can take homes where the need for them is shown, and a supply of 1.5 years shows it. Bigger schemes there also carry the Golden Rules, which cover affordable homes, the infrastructure a scheme needs and public green space, as explained in our grey belt guide.

The draft plan adds a local grey belt policy, LP3. It says the Green Belt review has defined some parcels broadly as grey belt, to be shown indicatively on the policies map, and supports development there only where all of four tests are met: a sustainable location in the settlement hierarchy, at least 50% affordable housing, no fundamental harm to the purposes of the remaining Green Belt taken together, and the Golden Rules. Half the homes as affordable is a demanding share that shapes what such land can support. The draft says a second, more detailed stage of the study, looking at the effect of removing specific sites, has also been carried out, and the council expects to publish it with the next consultation.

A local policy of strategic gaps sits on top. Policy LP4 of the draft names five: between Tamworth and Polesworth with Dordon, between Dordon and Baddesley with Grendon, between Grendon and Atherstone, the Coleshill corridor, and between Atherstone with Mancetter and Caldecote towards Nuneaton. A further study may add gaps along the A5. Inside a gap, schemes that significantly harm the separate character of the settlements are refused.

How a site is judged depends on where it sits:

1. Against a settlement outside the Green Belt. Land like the Warton field, sharing a boundary with a village and outside the belt, is tested under policy S5 while the shortfall lasts.
2. In the Green Belt, but weak against its purposes. Around Coleshill and wherever else the belt runs, the question is whether a parcel counts as grey belt. The housing need is already shown.
3. Previously developed land. Yards, depots and former works with lawful buildings or hardstanding have their own route in Green Belt policy. Our page on brownfield and yards covers what we look for.
4. Beside a neighbouring town. The draft plan's Category 2 covers settlements adjoining the outer boundary of the borough, where homes can be supported if the land is outside the Green Belt and the Strategic Gap and clearly integrates with the wider built-up area.

Since 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 do not predict the figure. 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 review of the plan runs on this 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 our guide to calls for sites and plan stages.

The delivery result gives no concern: 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.

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.

Edge Land Now, Green Belt Parcel by Parcel, the Rest at Examination

• 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.