Selling Land in Dudley

• Former works, depots and yards along the regeneration corridors, from Pensnett and Brierley Hill to Lye, Halesowen and Coseley, where the employment tests can be met.
• Unallocated previously developed land and older commercial buildings in and around the four town centres.
• Garage courts, backland and large gardens across the borough's suburbs, the kind of small site the windfall allowance counts on.
• Land within reach of the new Metro stops serving Dudley and Brierley Hill.
• Green Belt fields and paddocks on the borough's edges, looked at for grey belt and for the next plan.

Much of the work on a Dudley site is underground and on paper before it is on a drawing: the mining record, contamination, the employment designation and the title. We pay for all of it, and for the planning application, under an option agreement that fixes the price at the start, above the land's value as it stands today. The land stays in your use until the sale completes; should no permission come, it remains yours and nothing is owed to us. Our how it works page sets out each stage.

• 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.

Paragraph 8.7 of the plan's housing chapter applies a 20% buffer "to the requirement of 657 dwellings per annum for the first five years of the Plan", and paragraph 8.8 states a supply of 5.1 years at adoption. The working is in examination note DMBC27 of July 2025, which covers the five years from 2026/27 on 2023/24 monitoring, first as submitted and then with changes from the hearing action points.

On the revised figures the supply sits ten homes below the requirement, and what lifts it above five years is credit for homes built beyond the requirement in the plan's first two years. The inspector's report says the figure she accepted takes into account "the marginal surplus in housing delivery within the first two years of the Plan, together with a 20% buffer". She accepted that the figure "is marginal", but found that it "includes the appropriate buffer" and that "there is nothing in national policy to suggest that anything more is necessary."

Why 657 Homes and Not 1,514

The plan was examined against the December 2023 framework, with a local housing need of 657 homes a year, while the revised standard method now gives Dudley 1,514 a year, the figure in the council's scoping document for the next plan. Dudley's adopted figure is under half of that, and for decisions since 1 July 2026 the August 2026 framework gives a 20% buffer to a recent requirement of 80% or less of the standard method when, like this one, it was tested against a framework older than December 2024; the council's calculation already includes that buffer.

Delivery Below the Action Plan Line

The Housing Delivery Test 2025 found that the borough built 1,797 homes against 1,959 needed, a result of 92%. Below 95% the council must prepare an action plan, but the result clears the 85% line that would add a buffer and the 75% line at which unmet need is treated as evidenced under policy S5.

For an owner selling land for development in Dudley, the margin matters more than the headline. The inspector warned that if the council could not show five years, "the discipline of the tilted balance in favour of sustainable development would come into play". Under the August 2026 framework a shortfall would be evidence of unmet need to be weighed, never an automatic finding, and it is also the usual way grey belt land on the borough's edge meets its need test.

Paragraph 13.4 of the plan says it "is not proposing to review any of the borough's Green Belt boundaries", and it allocates no housing in the Green Belt. Policy DLP48 keeps a strong Green Belt "to promote redevelopment and regeneration within the urban area". The inspector found that an urban regeneration strategy "which does not include the release of Green Belt land for development" was consistent with national policy and deliverable.

Grey belt is the route left open: Green Belt land that does not strongly serve the purposes of checking urban sprawl, keeping towns apart or preserving historic towns. It applies to decisions whatever the local plan says, but a grey belt site must also meet a need test, and larger schemes the Golden Rules. Policy S5 does not apply in the Green Belt.

The Triangle at Wall Heath

The Triangle, Green Belt land at Wall Heath, shows the argument in practice. In May 2026 the Express and Star reported application P26/0380 for up to 557 homes there, with the decision still to be made, and the local MP said its reliance on grey belt "carries no weight in the context of Dudley's plan-led approach". With a supply of 5.1 years and a delivery result of 92%, neither of the usual ways of showing need applies in Dudley today, so a grey belt case for housing is hard to make at present. Our guide to grey belt explains how the purposes are judged.

If you are thinking of selling Green Belt land around Kingswinford, Wall Heath or elsewhere on the borough's edge, the adopted plan will not allocate it, so its prospects turn on the purposes it serves, on whether the supply margin holds, and on the next plan.

Because the adopted requirement meets less than 80% of local housing need under the current framework, paragraph 1.7 of the plan says the council must begin a new plan under the new plan-making system. Cabinet resolved to start it on 11 June 2026, and the council's timetable, in effect from 29 June 2026, sets out the stages:

Around Twelve Thousand More Homes to Find

Against the 1,514 a year the standard method gives, the scoping document finds a "circa 12,000 dwelling shortfall over a 15-year plan period". It looks first at more brownfield land and higher densities, then at what neighbours could take, and only then at greenfield sites outside the urban area, a step that "includes land within the Green Belt". The timetable page describes the new plan as running to 2041, while the scoping document anticipates an end date of 2045, which fits its 15-year period; on either date, the next plan is where Dudley's Green Belt will be weighed against a far larger need. Our guide to the call for sites and local plan stages explains how land is assessed before a draft plan.

Delivery and Supply, Year by Year

The Housing Delivery Test 2025 was issued on 17 August 2026, and results arrive once a year; we make no prediction of the next. The inspector added that "the Council and its partners must utilise all of their interventionist tools on an ongoing basis", and the first supply statement after adoption will show whether the margin has held.

• Urban and brownfield land can be looked at now, under policy S4 and the plan's employment tests.
• Green Belt land is best prepared for the consultation the timetable places in July to September 2027, when draft sites are due to be published.