Selling Land in Nuneaton and Bedworth

• Plots, yards and redevelopment sites within Nuneaton, Bedworth or Bulkington, where policy S4 and the plan's support for reusing previously developed land both help.
• Land at the edge of Nuneaton, the town the plan puts first, including sites beyond the current allocations.
• Green Belt fields on the edges of Bedworth, Bulkington, Keresley or Ash Green that play little part in keeping the three towns apart.
• Previously developed land in the Green Belt, such as a disused works or depot whose buildings have a lawful use.
• Holdings of 0.25 hectares or more that could be put to the new plan.

In a borough with plenty of land for now, the new plan is where most open land will be decided, and the council's updated Green Belt assessment will shape that. A site with its access, drainage, ecology and Green Belt evidence in order before the plan content consultation stands in a better position than one that arrives later. The cost of assembling it falls on us, not on you. Our option fixes a price on day one, higher than the land would fetch today, and farming, grazing or letting carries on as normal. Should permission never be secured, you owe us nothing and the land is still yours. Each stage is set out on our how it works page.

• 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 council's five-year housing land supply calculation, to a base date of 1 April 2026, is set out step by step. It uses the Borough Plan Review's own requirement of 545 homes a year, since the plan is new:

The 20% buffer is unusual for a council building this well, and it comes from a national rule that has applied to decisions since 1 July 2026. It bites where a housing figure set in the last five years was tested against a version of the framework that predates December 2024, and comes to no more than four fifths of the government's standard method. The inspectors examined this plan under the September 2023 framework, and 545 homes is about 73% of the 750 a year the council now says it must plan for.

The plan's policy DS3 sets a minimum of 9,810 homes from 2021 to 2039, and at its base date of March 2024 the plan identified supply for about 10,963, a margin it describes as flexibility in case some sites do not come forward. In the ten years before the plan period the borough averaged 424 homes a year. Every year since has been strong: 809 homes in 2021/22, 955, then 1,009, 841 and 877 in 2025/26. The trajectory expects 1,216 in 2026/27 and 1,242 the year after, most of them from the strategic allocations and sites that already have full permission.

Would the Higher Figure Change It?

It is fair to ask whether the supply only looks healthy because the plan's figure is modest. Put it to the test with the council's own numbers: five years at the new figure of 750 homes, with no credit for past over-supply and the same 20% buffer, comes to 4,500 homes. The 5,036 homes the council counts would still cover it. The supply was already above seven years at examination, when the inspectors' report of October 2025 found 3,428 deliverable homes from April 2025, or 7.49 years. On the council's own figures, then, a shortfall does not look like a route here, and we would not suggest waiting for one.

What That Means Under National Policy

Policy S5 of the August 2026 framework opens a route for homes past a settlement boundary only where unmet need is evidenced, and with a result of 221% and a supply of 10.2 years, that evidence is absent. The boundaries themselves were reviewed for the Borough Plan Review and now define Nuneaton, Bedworth, Bulkington, Ash Green with Neal's Green, and Keresley. Outside them, policy DS2 of the adopted plan limits new unallocated development to agriculture, forestry, leisure and other uses shown to need a location beyond the boundaries. Inside them it is different. DS2 accepts new development subject to a positive impact on amenity, the surrounding environment and local infrastructure, and encourages the reuse of previously developed land, while policy S4 of the national framework leans towards approval, refusing only where the harm would substantially outweigh the benefits.

The Green Belt here does a particular job. It keeps Nuneaton, Bedworth and Coventry from running into one another, and it runs between the villages on Coventry's northern edge, such as Keresley End and Ash Green. The 2019 inspector's report found exceptional circumstances to release land at Arbury and Gipsy Lane in Nuneaton, at Bedworth Woodlands, at Golf Drive and Hawkesbury golf course, and for employment at Prologis Park near Keresley, partly because the borough was then taking 4,020 homes of Coventry's unmet need. Arbury, Hospital Lane and the former Hawkesbury golf course all reappear as strategic allocations in the Borough Plan Review.

That review took no more. Its supporting text to policy DS6 says most of the borough's Green Belt lies south of Nuneaton and also surrounds Bedworth, Bulkington and Ash Green, and that, given the 2019 releases, existing permissions, sites put forward in the call for sites and an up-to-date assessment of need, exceptional circumstances did not exist for further release. DS6 itself allows only what national policy treats as not inappropriate, unless very special circumstances are shown, and limits previously developed sites to limited infilling and redevelopment. Under the August 2026 framework, homes on grey belt land can count as not inappropriate, but only where grey belt's own tests, including evidenced need, are met.

Now the council is preparing the ground for the next round. The scoping document says it is updating its Green Belt assessment, and states plainly that grey belt should be considered first if Green Belt land has to be released. With 750 homes a year to find, that assessment is likely to matter to many landowners on the edges of the towns.

How Officers Have Read Grey Belt So Far

The clearest local example came before the planning committee in March 2026. Officers' addendum report of 10 March 2026 dealt with a 100% affordable housing scheme on Green Belt land between Keresley End and Ash Green with Neal's Green. Its reasoning is worth knowing:

• Villages are not towns. Officers treated Ash Green and Keresley End as villages, so sprawl and merging between them could not count when deciding whether the site was grey belt.
• The big gaps were untouched. They found the site would not form or reduce the gap between Nuneaton and Bedworth, Nuneaton and Coventry, or Bedworth and Coventry.
• Grey belt, so not inappropriate. On that basis the site was determined as grey belt and the scheme regarded as not inappropriate development in the Green Belt.
• No local Golden Rule policy yet. The addendum notes that the Borough Plan Review has no policy of its own on affordable housing for land within or released from the Green Belt, so officers applied the national figure of at least 50% affordable housing, unless that would make the scheme unviable. This scheme offered all of its homes as affordable.

An earlier application, reported by Coventry Live in July 2025, sought up to 22 affordable rented homes at Elwy Circle in Ash Green and described its site the same way. That outline application, reference 041073, was deferred for a site visit and then came back to the planning applications committee, which resolved on 21 April 2026 to delegate the decision to officers, to be issued subject to conditions once a legal agreement was in place, and referred members' concerns about confusion between Green Belt and grey belt to the Borough Plan Committee for guidance. The council's planning register still listed the application as undecided in late September 2026, with its decision date then set for 30 September 2026, which shows how long the legal agreement stage can run after a committee has said yes. The lesson for other land is that grey belt is judged parcel by parcel, and where a field sits against the three big gaps counts for a great deal. For homes on grey belt land, national policy also asks for the need to be shown, and for general housing the usual evidence, a delivery result below 75% or a supply under five years, is absent here. Our guide to grey belt land sets out each test and the Golden Rules.

The council's local plan timetable sets out the new plan's route:

The call for sites has closed, but the plan is young. The council ran a call for sites alongside its scoping consultation, taking sites of 0.25 hectares or more until 10 August 2026. That window has shut, although the council has said that sites sent in to its 2024 call for employment sites or its summer 2025 call for sites need not be submitted again. The plan content consultation in summer 2027 will be the next formal chance to comment, followed by the consultation on the proposed plan in spring 2028. For what each of those stages involves, see our guide to the plan-making stages.

A Surplus of 2,576 Homes and a Paused Reorganisation

The latest statement is dated 1 April 2026. A surplus of 2,576 homes is a wide margin, though the next figure is not ours to predict. The Housing Delivery Test 2025 was released on 17 August 2026, and at 221% none of the test's consequences applies. A new edition follows each year.

Reorganisation adds a layer of doubt. The scoping document notes wider uncertainty from local government reorganisation. Warwickshire County Council confirmed on 9 September 2026 that reorganisation in the county is paused while the government reviews whether the process is legally robust, one of 14 areas held back in this way. For now, the borough council is the body preparing the new plan.

Town Sites Now, Open Land for Summer 2027

• Sites inside the towns and Bulkington, and previously developed land, can be reviewed now, since neither depends on the supply position.
• Open land and Green Belt edges belong in the new plan, and the evidence is best ready for the summer 2027 consultation, while the Green Belt assessment is still being shaped.
• Grey belt schemes will turn on each parcel's role in the gaps between the towns, which is the first thing our review looks at.