Selling Land in Stratford-on-Avon

• Fields adjoining Stratford-upon-Avon or the market towns, especially where homes could start within five years.
• Land beside the larger villages, such as Bidford-on-Avon, Studley and Wellesbourne, sized to suit the village.
• Sites mostly in Flood Zone 1, clear of the river flood plains.
• Former farmyards, workshops and commercial land, including in the Green Belt.
• Larger holdings near the joint plan's growth locations, which may suit later phases or a future review.

In a district where the council wants homes that can be delivered within the five-year window, the quality of the evidence decides the outcome: access, drainage, ecology, heritage and a realistic build programme. We pay for all of it under an option agreed at a fixed price at the outset, above the land's value today. You keep farming or using the land in the meantime. Should the application fail, the land stays yours and nothing is owed to us. Our page on farmland shows the holdings we look at.

• 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 Core Strategy asks for 730 homes a year. When the government revised its standard method in December 2024, the district's figure more than doubled, from 553 to 1,126 homes a year, later settling at 1,112. A review in 2021 had found the plan's housing figure still sound, but the council accepts that a rise of more than 100% is a significant change, so from April 2025 it measures supply against the government's figure rather than the plan's. Its calculation at 31 March 2025 sets out the result:

Of the homes with permission, 1,171 were already under construction at the base date, and 460 sit on two large sites with outline permission, for which the council sets out its evidence that building will start in time. The small site allowance rests on a falling trend: sites of one to nine homes produced 245 completions in 2019/20 but only 126 in 2024/25, so the council cuts the seven-year average of 173.6 by 5% and counts nothing from unknown small sites in the first three years.

None of the joint plan's proposed sites is counted. Building has also slowed. Completions peaked at 1,574 in 2021/22, then fell to 1,431, 1,011 and 903 in 2024/25, the lowest since 2020/21.

The Appeal at Bordon Hill

The council tested an earlier figure and lost. At a July 2025 inquiry into Gladman Developments' appeal for up to 130 homes on horse-grazed land at Bordon Hill, on the western edge of Stratford-upon-Avon, it argued for 5.06 years, a surplus of 41 homes. The field carries the name of an orchard, though the inspector saw little sign of one. The inspector found no clear evidence that several sites would deliver within five years, among them phases at Gaydon and Lighthorne Heath and homes at Long Marston Airfield, and put supply at 2.74 years, a shortfall of about 2,285 homes. Taking out 584 homes on the disputed sites alone cut the council's own figure to 4.23 years. The council had also asked to deduct 2,124 homes built ahead of the Core Strategy; the inspector would allow that at most for the first year, holding that past over-delivery should not offset the full five-year requirement. The appeal was allowed in September 2025, even though the site sat just outside the town's built-up area boundary and counted as countryside, with up to 46 affordable homes given significant weight. The council's later calculation uses the new figure for all five years.

For an owner selling land on the edge of Stratford-upon-Avon or a market town, Bordon Hill shows the council's figure tested at inquiry and found wanting, on land the plan had treated as countryside.

The joint plan runs from April 2025 to March 2050 and sets a requirement of 27,800 homes for this district, 1,112 a year, with each district keeping its own supply calculation. Its development strategy counts on the following supply in Stratford-on-Avon:

Several sites come with large infrastructure. The site proposals tie Long Marston Airfield to a Stratford-upon-Avon bypass and a safeguarded railway station, Bidford-on-Avon to a relief road and a new crossing of the Avon, and Henley-in-Arden to a new primary school and a country park. Land at Gaydon is set aside for automotive employment. The plan says it has not sought to meet any of its needs within the Cotswolds National Landscape. It also explains why it did not keep all growth off the Green Belt: doing so, it says, would have strained infrastructure and pushed growth unevenly into the south of this district.

The Site Allocations Plan Has Gone

Under the April 2026 timetable, the council's separate Site Allocations Plan stopped being prepared once the joint plan's final consultation opened. Smaller sites now come through the joint plan's local growth allocations, 3,400 homes in this district. The joint call for sites is not taking new land, so a field that was never put forward realistically has two routes: an application while supply is short, or a later review of the plan. How a site moves from submission to allocation is explained in our call for sites and local plans guide.