Selling Land in Warwick District

The district has kept building. Its monitoring report for 2024/25 shows completions running at between 841 and 1,168 homes a year from 2017/18 to 2024/25, when 850 were finished, 318 of them affordable, or 37.4%. Against the 2017 plan's own stepped requirement of 600 homes a year to 2016/17 and 1,098 a year since, the district had delivered 11,003 homes by March 2025 against 12,384 required.

The shortfall brings the tilted balance into applications, which planning officers spell out to councillors. In November 2025 officers recommended 140 homes, 40% of them affordable, on land off Westwood Heath Road, close to Coventry, a site taken out of the Green Belt by the 2017 plan. Councillors refused it by five votes to four, with one officer reminding them that the missing five-year supply meant they had to weigh the scheme differently. Committee decisions can go either way; the evidence behind an application has to be complete enough to stand up at appeal.

How National Policy Applies Here

Outside the Green Belt, policy S5 of the August 2026 framework counts a supply under five years as evidence of unmet housing need, which supports homes past a settlement's edge where the land genuinely belongs to the place beside it and the infrastructure can take them. Inside the towns, policy S4 tilts decisions towards approval, and a refusal needs harm that substantially outweighs what a scheme offers. Green Belt land sits outside S5 altogether. There the question is whether land is grey belt, for which the shortfall provides the evidence of need that national policy asks for, with the Golden Rules on affordable housing, infrastructure and green space to follow. Our grey belt guide covers how a parcel is assessed against the Green Belt purposes.

Over the 25 years to March 2050, the South Warwickshire Local Plan asks Warwick District for 27,125 homes, the same 1,085 a year as today's standard method, and the district will go on testing its own five-year supply apart from Stratford-on-Avon. Policy DS.3 finds the homes here:

The plan accepts that exceptional circumstances justify taking land out of the Green Belt, pointing to high levels of need and the lack of sustainable alternatives, and noting that every station in south Warwickshire is in or close to it. The site proposals give Hatton two primary schools and a secondary school, a district centre and a spine road bridging the railway and the canal, with improved rail facilities. South of Bishop's Tachbrook, 121 hectares are set aside for employment alongside a new M40 junction to replace junctions 13 and 14, while the north west site, which lies outside the Green Belt, brings a 40-hectare extension to Tachbrook Country Park.

Owners whose land is already in the joint call for sites can still send updates, such as a changed boundary or further evidence, but no new sites are being taken. Fresh land now comes forward by application or waits for a later review.

Submission by the End of 2026

After a final consultation from 21 July to 8 September 2026, the two councils aim to submit the plan to the government by 31 December 2026. The earlier preferred options stage drew more than 22,000 responses, a sign of how closely the examination will be followed. Until it is adopted, the 2017 plan and the shortfall set the terms for applications.

The Next Supply Paper

The 2025 paper appeared in December 2025, eight months after its base date, and rests on a housing trajectory that takes in the latest updates from the companies preparing and building each site. The next one, at 1 April 2026, will show whether the Coventry deduction and the standard method still leave the district well short. Kings Hill, allocated south of Coventry in 2017, was expected to be marketed during 2026 with construction from 2028, so it adds little in the near term.

The Next Delivery Test

The government repeats the delivery test every year, and the current Housing Delivery Test 2025 was published on 17 August 2026. At 128% the district is clear of every consequence: an action plan follows a result under 95%, and a 20% buffer one under 85%. We will not guess the score.

A Southern Unitary Council, on Hold

In July 2026 the government chose a two-council model for Warwickshire, with a southern unitary covering Stratford-on-Avon and Warwick. Since the national pause of 7 September 2026, Stratford-on-Avon District Council has confirmed that the Warwickshire proposals are among those on hold for review, and that the May 2027 elections will use today's council boundaries. Warwick District Council remains the body deciding applications and taking the joint plan forward.

What This Means for Timing

• Previously developed land and plots in the towns can be looked at now, and the shortfall adds weight to them.
• Grey belt fields are best tested while the joint plan is still at examination, since adoption will bring new Green Belt boundaries and a fresh supply position.
• Open Green Belt land that needs its boundary redrawn follows the joint plan and its later reviews. The typical span of each stage is in our guide to how long planning takes.