Selling Land in Birmingham

• Yards, depots, workshops and older commercial buildings across the city, from Aston and Yardley to Selly Oak and Longbridge.
• Garage courts, backland and big rear gardens that could take a short terrace or a few houses.
• Previously developed land on the city's edge, including in the Green Belt.
• Fields in Sutton Coldfield and Walmley that sit against the built-up area or the Langley extension.
• Land that has come to you through an estate and that you would rather sell than manage.

In a city, the detail of a small site decides it: title, access, contamination, neighbours and the planning history all need settling before the council sees a drawing, and on a Green Belt field the grey belt evidence comes first. We pay for all of that work and every application that follows, under an option whose price we settle with you before any work begins, set higher than the land's value in its present use. The land stays in your hands and in use until completion, and should the council refuse permission, it remains yours with nothing owed to us. Owners dealing with an estate will find the steps on our inherited land 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 Housing Land Supply Position Statement of October 2025 reviews sites at a base date of 1 April 2025 and concludes that the city has 6.45 years of deliverable land. Because the 2017 plan is more than five years old, the statement sets its sites against the national formula for local housing need, not the figure written into that plan. Its arithmetic runs as follows:

The council's previous statement, of December 2024 and at a base date of 1 April 2024, used the same local housing need method and the same 20% buffer, set 26,688 homes against a yearly need of 4,448, and found 5.61 years. The yearly need barely moved between the two, so the wider margin came from a larger pipeline: 34,905 homes in 2025 against just under 30,000 a year earlier.

Why a City With Spare Land Still Counts as Short of Homes

More than half of the supply in the table, 19,955 of 34,905 homes, was already being built at the base date. The supply counts homes that are permitted or under way, while the Housing Delivery Test counts only homes finished, which is why the two measures disagree.

Under the national framework of August 2026, because Birmingham sits under 75%, policy S5 counts its unmet need as evidenced, however many years of land the council can show, and under 85% the 20% buffer the council already applies stays in place. A supply above five years does not cancel either consequence.

If you are thinking of selling land in Birmingham, the low delivery result is the figure that carries weight for you, while the supply above five years means a shortfall argument is not open to you today.

Because the countryside inside the city boundary is almost all Green Belt, the routes that work in a shire district apply only in part here. Where your land sits decides which test it meets:

1. Inside the built-up area. Plots, yards, workshops, garage courts and backland fall under policy S4, which leans towards permission and lets the council refuse only where the harm would substantially outweigh what the scheme brings. This is the test for yards and plots across the city, from Erdington to Selly Oak.
2. Previously developed land, including in the Green Belt. Green Belt policy treats yards, depots and plots with lawful buildings other than farm buildings differently from open fields, so brownfield land on the city's edge has a route of its own.
3. Open Green Belt land around Sutton Coldfield. Policy S5 does not apply in the Green Belt. Grey belt housing needs evidence that the homes are needed, which is normally shown either by a delivery result under 75% or by less than five years of supply. Birmingham's 57% meets the first of those today, so a field that genuinely qualifies as grey belt has the need test behind it. Larger schemes then follow the Golden Rules, including the higher affordable housing contribution.
4. Not through a boundary change. The new Birmingham Local Plan proposes no release of Green Belt land at all, so a field that would only work if the boundary were redrawn has no route in this plan, which runs to 2044.

What the 2025 Green Belt Assessment Found

Arup's assessment looked first at 35 broad parcels and then at 26 Green Belt sites that had been put forward through the council's call for sites. Of the parcels, 29 were identified as potential grey belt. Of the sites, 24 were identified as potential grey belt, and the report notes that the two sites making a strong contribution to Green Belt purposes, and the two making a weak one, were all in Sutton Coldfield. The report stresses that an assessment of this kind can only identify grey belt provisionally.

The council then decided not to use that evidence to move the boundary. Its Publication Plan states that the sites it proposes to allocate give "enough supply alongside a significant buffer" to meet the city's need, so "exceptional circumstances have not been demonstrated to justify the alteration of the Green Belt boundary", and that the Green Belt will continue to be protected to 2044. Grey belt land is therefore decided application by application under national policy, not allocated.

The assessment does not settle the question for any one field, but most of the Green Belt land it looked at came out as potential grey belt. Our grey belt guide explains the purposes a site is judged against. For yards and commercial land, our page on brownfield and yards shows the kind of site we take on.

An owner selling greenfield land in Sutton Coldfield therefore starts with the need test already met by the delivery result, and the work lies in showing that the field itself qualifies.

The council's Local Development Scheme for 2025 to 2028 set publication for June and July 2026, submission for October 2026, examination from January 2027, the inspector's report in July 2027 and adoption in September 2027. Publication in fact opened on 13 August 2026. On 28 July 2026 the cabinet approved the plan for publication and agreed that, after the consultation, it would go to full Council for authority to submit it for examination. The cabinet report ties this to the government's deadline of 31 December 2026 for submitting plans of the current kind, and warns that missing it would mean starting again in the new plan-making system, with no new plan in place for at least another three years. The later dates in the timetable were set before the delay to publication.

Until adoption, applications are judged against the 2017 plan, the October 2025 supply statement and national policy. Supply statements came out in December 2024 and October 2025, each with a 1 April base date, so the next one is worth watching, though a change in it will matter less than the delivery result.

A Delivery Result Far Below 75%

The Housing Delivery Test 2025, published on 17 August 2026, counted 12,101 homes built over three years against 21,400 needed, giving Birmingham 57% and a shortfall of 9,299 homes. Results are refreshed once a year. The 19,955 homes under construction at April 2025 count towards the test only as they are finished within the years measured, and we make no forecast of the result.

City plots under policy S4 and grey belt fields in Sutton Coldfield need not wait for the new plan, and a Green Belt field gains nothing by waiting for it, because the plan keeps the boundary where it is. Urban land that the plan does not allocate can still come forward as a windfall site; our guide to local plan stages explains how allocations and examinations work.

For anyone thinking of selling land for development in Birmingham, submission of the new plan and then its examination are the next milestones, and while the delivery result stays below 75% the need test for grey belt housing is met.