Warwickshire council area

Selling Land in Nuneaton and Bedworth

Nuneaton and Bedworth adopted its Borough Plan Review in December 2025 and can show 10.2 years of housing land, yet it has already started again. New national rules ask it to plan for 750 homes a year instead of 545, and the council has said grey belt land should be looked at first if Green Belt has to be released.

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Two Towns in Warwickshire's Smallest Borough

Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council covers the two towns in its name, the village of Bulkington, and the northern fringe of Coventry at Keresley and Ash Green with Neal's Green. The Borough Plan Review describes it as the smallest of the county's districts in size, at 7,895 hectares, but the third largest by population. Wikipedia gives 141,565 residents in 2024, and its wards include Stockingford, Attleborough, Camp Hill, Weddington, Whitestone, Galley Common and Exhall.

A plan adopted in December 2025. Full council adopted the Borough Plan Review 2021 to 2039, which replaced the Borough Plan adopted in 2019.
Nuneaton first. Policy DS2 sends most new development to Nuneaton, then Bedworth, then Bulkington, with Keresley and Ash Green forming part of Coventry's northern fringe.
Building far ahead of target. The council built 2,866 homes against a requirement of 1,298 in the Housing Delivery Test 2025, a result of 221%.
Green Belt between the towns. When the 2019 plan was examined, the inspector recorded that 41% of the borough, 3,275 hectares, would remain Green Belt after that plan's releases.
Ample housing land. The council's latest statement finds 10.2 years of deliverable land at 1 April 2026.

On the numbers, there is little pressure on the council to accept sites it has not planned for. That changes the route a landowner should take, not whether land here is worth looking at, as the rest of this page explains. For the wider picture, our Warwickshire page compares all five districts.

Nuneaton and Bedworth in Figures

The government's latest figures for the council, its latest five-year housing land supply, and where its local plan stands.

Housing Delivery Test 2025
221%
Meeting its housing requirement.
Five-year housing land supply
10.2 years
Five years or more of deliverable housing land. Position at 1 April 2026, measured against the Borough Plan Review requirement of 545 homes a year, reduced for past over-supply, plus a 20% buffer. Stated by Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council.
Checked source
Homes built against homes needed
2,866
of 1,298 needed, April 2022 to March 2025
Most recent strategic plan adopted
December 2025
The plan currently used to decide applications.
New plan progress
Updated
New plan started June 2026: Gateway 1 on 30 October 2026, adoption aimed for April 2029
Checked source

Sources: Housing Delivery Test: 2025 measurement, MHCLG, published 17 August 2026; Local plans: monitoring progress, Planning Inspectorate, August 2026. Local plans move quickly, so always check the council's own website for the latest position.

Five Years of Land With 2,576 Homes to Spare

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:

Source: Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council, five-year housing land supply calculation and housing trajectory, 1 April 2026.
Step	Council's figure
Five years at 545 homes	2,725 homes
Credit for past over-supply	Minus 675: 4,491 homes were built from 2021/22 to 2025/26 against 2,725 required, and the 1,766 extra homes are spread over the 13 years left, taking 135 a year off
Requirement after the credit	2,050 homes
Buffer	20%, or 410 homes, which the council says paragraph 78(c) of the national framework requires of it from 1 July 2026
Five-year requirement	2,460 homes, or 492 a year
Deliverable supply	5,036 homes
Result	10.2 years

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.

A New Plan for 750 Homes a Year

The council gave notice on 29 June 2026 that it was starting a new local plan, little more than six months after adopting the last one. Its scoping consultation explains why. New local plan regulations came into force in March 2026, and under them some councils with a recently adopted plan must begin preparing a new one within 30 months where that plan does not meet the relevant housing need threshold. The document puts the borough's new need at a minimum of 750 homes a year, 37% more than the 545 in the Borough Plan Review. The plan anticipated this. Its policy DS8 commits the council to a complete review at least every five years, and allows an earlier one where national policy changes significantly or updated evidence shows a change in housing need.

The gap is sharper than it first looks. The Borough Plan Review itself records a standard method figure of only 421 homes a year, and the council set 545 for economic growth and affordable housing reasons, which the inspectors accepted as positively prepared. The revised standard method has since overtaken it. Over a 15-year plan period, an extra 205 homes a year would come to more than 3,000 homes that today's allocations were never meant to hold.

Coventry and the Sub-Region

The 2019 plan took some of Coventry's unmet housing need, and that was part of the case for releasing Green Belt then. This time the inspectors found no compelling evidence that the borough should plan for its neighbours' needs, as Coventry expected to meet its own. The scoping document confirms that no unmet housing need has been declared, only 7 hectares of unmet employment land, and notes that no spatial development strategy is proposed for Warwickshire. So the 750 homes are the borough's own need, not an overspill.

Grey Belt Where the Green Belt Holds Three Towns Apart

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. The council's planning register shows that outline application, reference 041073, still pending consideration in late September 2026, with its decision date then set for 30 September 2026. 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.

Top Farm, Arbury and the Bulkington Sites

Policy DS4 names seven strategic housing allocations. The five-year trajectory shows how much of each the council expects to see built by March 2031:

Sources: Borough Plan Review policy DS4, and the council's trajectory at 1 April 2026.
Strategic allocation	Homes in the plan	Counted in the five years
SHA1 Top Farm, north of Nuneaton	1,700	984
SHA2 Arbury	1,525	150
SHA3 Tuttle Hill	350	125
SHA4 Hospital Lane	445	408
SHA5 West of Bulkington	375	280
SHA6 Former Hawkesbury Golf Course	176	176
SHA7 East of Bulkington	230	230

East of Bulkington, which already had permission for 230 homes, was added during the examination, when the inspectors also deleted a non-strategic allocation at Kingswood Road, Nuneaton, because it was no longer available. Arbury was first allocated for the same 1,525 homes in the 2019 plan, yet the trajectory expects only 150 of them by March 2031, a reminder of how long a large allocation takes to build out.

The plan's affordable housing policy, H2, seeks at least 25% affordable homes on sites of 15 or more, a level its viability evidence of 2023 found workable, and two affordable homes on sites of 11 to 14. The council's priority is homes for affordable rent. Like Section 106 and other obligations, that comes off what a site can support, and our guide to Section 106 and CIL explains how. H2 also supports small rural exception sites next to a settlement boundary, where most of the homes are affordable for local people and any market homes are the minimum needed to make them possible.

The Land We Look for 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.

Nuneaton and Bedworth From Gateway 1 to a 2029 Plan

The Timetable

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

Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council local plan timetable, June 2026. The dates are the council's and may move.
Stage	Council's timetable
Gateway 1 self-assessment	30 October 2026
Consultation on plan content and evidence	28 June to 9 August 2027
Gateway 2 observations and advice	29 November 2027
Consultation on the proposed plan	3 April to 29 May 2028
Gateway 3 assessment	4 September 2028
Submission for examination	30 October 2028
Adoption	30 April 2029

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 call for sites and local plans guide.

The Next Supply Statement and Delivery Test

The latest statement is dated 1 April 2026. A surplus of 2,576 homes is a wide margin, though we make no forecast of the next figure. The Housing Delivery Test 2025 came out on 17 August 2026, and at 221% none of the test's consequences applies. A new edition follows each year.

Reorganisation and the County's Shape

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.

What This Means for Timing

Sites inside the towns and Bulkington, and previously developed land, can be looked at now, as 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.

Questions About Land in Nuneaton and Bedworth

The council adopted a new plan in December 2025. Why would it need my land?

Because new national rules have already overtaken it. The council now has to plan for at least 750 homes a year against the 545 in its adopted plan, and it has started a new plan to find room for them.

I missed the call for sites in August 2026. What now?

The plan is at an early stage, with the first consultation on its content due in summer 2027. Land can still be assessed and its evidence prepared before then, and we can advise on how to put it forward.

My field is in the Green Belt between Bedworth and Coventry. Could it be grey belt?

Possibly, but that stretch is exactly where the Green Belt does its main job of keeping the towns apart. Officers have looked closely at whether a site forms or reduces those gaps, so a field there needs careful evidence.

I have land near Ash Green or Keresley. Is that treated differently?

It can be. In a March 2026 report, officers treated Ash Green and Keresley End as villages rather than towns, which changed how one site's Green Belt role was judged. Each parcel is still assessed on its own merits.

Does the large supply mean I should not bother applying on the edge of Nuneaton?

For open land outside the settlement boundary, the new plan is the better route, because the plan and supply both weigh against unallocated schemes today. Sites inside the boundary are judged under different, more supportive tests.

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Sources

Figures on this page come from the Housing Delivery Test 2025 (published 17 August 2026) and the Planning Inspectorate's local plan monitoring to August 2026, with newer plan milestones checked on 24 September 2026. We update the page when new results or plan milestones are published. Planning positions change quickly, so always check the council's own website before relying on it.