Selling Land in the West Midlands

• It sits next to, or is well related to, an existing town or village.
• A safe access onto a public road is possible, even if it needs work.
• Most of the land is outside the highest flood risk zone.
• It is not covered by a strong designation such as a Site of Special Scientific Interest.
• It is about 2 acres or more, or part of a larger holding.
• Everyone who owns it is willing to consider one clear, agreed price.

If your land does not tick every box, ask anyway. Many of the sites we take on have a problem to solve, whether that is access, drainage, a tenancy or an awkward boundary, and solving those problems is our job.

1. A first conversation. You call us or send the form on this page. We need only your postcode, your name and a phone number or email.
2. A free desktop review. Within a few days we look at your land, the planning position in the West Midlands and the routes open to it, and tell you plainly whether it suits us. The review is free and confidential, with no obligation.
3. Heads of terms and the option agreement. If it suits, we agree a price with you in writing, then the option agreement itself. We contribute to your solicitor's and land agent's fees, so it costs you nothing to get it done properly.
4. The planning work, at our cost. We pay for the surveys, the design, the planning application and any appeal. You carry on farming, grazing or letting the land as you do now.
5. Completion. If planning 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.

How selling land for development works, step by step gives the detail of each stage and how long it usually takes.

Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton adopted the Black Country Core Strategy together in February 2011 and went on to prepare a joint Black Country Plan to 2039. Sandwell's questions and answers on its own plan date the end of that work to October 2022 and name the sticking point as the joint plan's proposed Green Belt releases in Dudley and Walsall.

The fourteen councils of the Greater Birmingham and Black Country housing market area set out the homes the conurbation cannot fit in a position statement of April 2023:

Since then, Birmingham's new plan sets out to meet its need inside the city, and Solihull's draft plan aims to meet its own need while naming the spatial development strategy as "the most appropriate mechanism for addressing any unmet needs". In the Black Country, Dudley's plan as submitted made "no provision for the unmet needs of others", its inspector recorded, and Wolverhampton's inspectors found too little secured from neighbours. Our Shropshire and Staffordshire pages cover where the neighbouring councils' contributions stand now.

For an owner the effect cuts both ways: need that one council cannot meet carries no weight in an application in the next council's area unless that council's own plan takes a share, yet the shortage keeps the Green Belt question alive in every plan in and around the conurbation.

The West Midlands Green Belt

The government's Green Belt statistics of October 2026 put 264,280 hectares of the West Midlands region in Green Belt at 31 March 2026, 20.3% of its land, and record the Green Belt around Birmingham at 226,390 hectares, 220 fewer than a year before, the 110 hectares each that Cannock Chase and Wychavon took out in new boundaries, the only changes in the region that year; none of the seven boroughs changed its boundary. Within the county the belt holds the Meriden Gap between Birmingham and Solihull on one side and Coventry on the other, and it covers two thirds of Solihull on its draft plan's figure and 18% of Dudley on its inspector's.

Grey belt is previously developed land in the Green Belt, or other Green Belt land that plays no strong part in stopping sprawl, keeping towns from merging or protecting historic towns. Housing there, where S5 cannot reach, needs its own evidence of need, usually a supply under five years or a delivery result under 75%, and larger schemes must meet the Golden Rules on affordable homes, infrastructure and green space. Our grey belt guide explains how the purposes are judged.

The Regional Strategy

The combined authority's answers on the spatial development strategy say it "may identify broad locations for growth, strategic opportunities or areas of search", while "detailed site allocations are generally expected to be addressed through local plans". Solihull's draft plan sets out the strategy's provisional timetable: a draft for consultation in summer to autumn 2027, examination in autumn to winter 2027, and adoption, monitoring and review from spring or summer 2028 onwards.

Whatever the strategy brings, selling land for development here begins with two checks: whether the site is in the Green Belt, and if not, what its last use and its ground will allow.

Six councils are below 75%, so need is treated as evidenced, but most open land here is Green Belt, where S5 does not reach. The routes are:

1. Policy S4 inside the towns and cities. Plots, yards, garage courts and backland, where permission is expected unless the harm would substantially outweigh the benefits. This is the main route in every borough.
2. Grey belt on the Green Belt edge. In the six councils under 75%, the grey belt need test is normally met, and the field must then be shown not to serve the Green Belt purposes strongly.
3. Previously developed land in the Green Belt. Former depots, yards and works with lawful buildings other than farm buildings, which national policy treats differently from open fields.
4. The local plan. Walsall and Solihull published their plans in September and October 2026, the stage before submission; Dudley, Sandwell and Wolverhampton have begun plans under the new system, and larger holdings that need a boundary moved belong there.

In Dudley the same paddock would face a harder grey belt need test today, which is why we look at the borough and the site together before saying anything about value.