Selling Land in Bromsgrove

• Fields on the edge of Bromsgrove town, Catshill, Wythall, Hagley, Alvechurch, Barnt Green or Stoke Prior, the places the council has already named for growth.
• Green Belt land enclosed by the M5, the M42, a railway or existing housing, where its contribution to the Green Belt purposes may be limited.
• Lawful yards, depots and former commercial premises, which are scarce in the district.
• Land within a reasonable walk of Bromsgrove, Barnt Green, Alvechurch or Hagley stations.
• Larger holdings with room for affordable homes, open space and new infrastructure inside the scheme.
• Gardens, paddocks and plots within the town and villages, where policy S4 applies.

If a field sits in the open gap between two villages, or out in open countryside well away from a settlement, we will tell you honestly how hard that case would be. Where the prospects are good, we agree a fixed price at the outset, pay for the whole planning process, and complete the purchase once planning permission has been secured. You carry on using the land until then. The full sequence is on our how it works 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 draft development strategy, consulted on from 30 June to 20 October 2025, set out the size of the task. The council needs land for 12,155 homes by 2043. Around 3,000 of those are already covered by permissions and existing allocations, which leaves just over 9,000 still to place. Of more than 400 sites assessed, only 26 were brownfield. Six outside the Green Belt could yield around 136 homes and four inside it 35, giving 171 with the potential for 16 more, so the council concluded that brownfield land alone could not meet the need.

Why the Supply Is 2.24 Years

The council's report for the year to March 2025 explains that the 2017 plan turned five on 25 January 2022, so the test now uses the government's local housing need of 715 homes a year rather than the plan's requirement. It adds a 20% buffer on its own analysis of past delivery, while disputing how the government calculates its delivery test result, which gives 4,290 homes needed over five years. Against that it counts 1,918 deliverable homes, nearly all with permission already. Net completions in 2024/25 were 256.

To avoid swamping its villages, the strategy proposed one large location at Frankley, next to Birmingham, alongside growth at Bromsgrove town and six other settlements:

The council's launch announcement described a 12 week consultation closing on 22 September 2025. Its FAQ and later updates give 20 October, the date it now reports, so older material may show either. These were proposals for comment, not decisions. The council received around 8,000 responses, has published a summary for each of the eight settlements, and is now carrying out a revised Green Belt assessment before any sites are chosen. A draft plan is expected for consultation in summer 2027.

Land That Was Not on the 2025 List

The 21 draft sites were drawn from roughly 400 proposals, so most land put forward did not feature. Because the Green Belt evidence is being redone and no site decisions have been taken, the picture is more open than that ratio suggests. What counts before the 2027 draft is a site that has its evidence in order: transport, drainage, ecology, landscape and a layout that shows how many homes it can hold. We commission and pay for all of that.

The council's 2018 review paper records that the two councils cooperated to allocate land inside Bromsgrove district, on Redditch's boundary, to meet Redditch's housing needs. At Foxlydiate, a cross-boundary scheme mostly inside Bromsgrove district with a small part in Redditch borough, both councils issued permission, and a Section 106 agreement worth more than £18 million was reached in January 2022 for up to 2,560 homes, paying for transport, education, health and green infrastructure. Frankley was put forward in 2025 because the council judged that placing all of its need in its own villages could change their scale and character fundamentally.

The council has also made clear that Birmingham and the other neighbouring authorities cannot take Bromsgrove's own need. Their brownfield land, although far larger than Bromsgrove's, is needed to meet their own targets.

That matters for anyone selling land in Bromsgrove: the district's need has to be met inside its own boundary, so the revised Green Belt assessment will shape where a large share of it goes.

The 2025 strategy lists flood alleviation, drainage and biodiversity net gain among the infrastructure new homes would need, and the council has said an Infrastructure Delivery Plan will set out phasing and costs as the plan progresses.

The Proposed Move to North Worcestershire

Under the July 2026 decision, Bromsgrove would join Redditch and Wyre Forest in a new North Worcestershire council from April 2028. With the draft plan not due until summer 2027, that council would most likely have taken it through examination to adoption. Existing plans normally remain in force until they are replaced, so the 2017 Bromsgrove District Plan and national policy will keep deciding applications whatever the review concludes.

• The yearly delivery result. The Housing Delivery Test 2025 was published on 17 August 2026. Its successor will swap the earliest year of April 2022 to March 2025 for the year to March 2026. Starting from 58%, one better year is unlikely to carry the district to 75%, so it will still count as short of homes. A rise would matter in a different way: stronger completions, alongside a published draft plan, would give the council more to set against applications that sit outside its chosen strategy.
• The revised Green Belt assessment. The council has said this comes before any sites are chosen, which makes it the most useful document for owners ahead of the summer 2027 draft. It should show how the council now judges each area of Green Belt against the national purposes, and that feeds straight into any grey belt argument.
• The fate of reorganisation. On 7 September 2026 the government paused the July decisions for Worcestershire and other areas while it carries out a rapid review, and said the local elections due in May 2027 will still be held on today's council boundaries. Worcestershire County Council said it was seeking urgent clarification on what the pause meant for the county. If the review delays North Worcestershire, Bromsgrove District Council could be the body that takes the draft plan on to examination.

In practice, the months before the draft appears are a period in which applications are judged against a plan adopted in 2017, a supply of 2.24 years and a delivery result of 58%. Grey belt and previously developed land can be tested through an application now. For other land, the aim is to have its evidence complete while the draft is still being written.