Selling land in Bath and North East Somerset
A new plan out for comment, a published shortfall of housing land and a lot of Green Belt. What that means for your land.
The local plan
A draft plan out for comment, a shortfall in the meantime
The adopted plan is the Core Strategy of 2014, the Placemaking Plan of 2017 and the Local Plan Partial Update of January 2023, whose period ends in 2029. The council is replacing it with the Local Plan 2025 to 2043. Its pre-submission draft is out for comment from 18 September to 5pm on 30 October 2026. The council plans to submit it for examination in winter 2026 and expects adoption in 2027 or 2028 (council Local Plan pages and Housing Supply Topic Paper, read October 2026).
The draft sets out a need of 1,518 homes a year or 27,324 over 2025 to 2043, under the government's method. It plans for about 22,000, around 80 per cent of that and it says 41 per cent of the capacity on its larger allocations needs Green Belt release. It also says Green Belt covers almost 70 per cent of the district and that it does not meet Bristol's unmet need (Housing Supply Topic Paper, 2026).
What that means for an owner. The council's own interim statement of May 2025 gives 2.5 years of deliverable housing land. National policy tilts decisions towards approval when that figure is below five years, though Green Belt and National Landscape policies can still justify a refusal. The Housing Delivery Test result for 2025, published on 17 August 2026, was 92 per cent, which means the council must publish an action plan but the test itself brings no presumption. Land that the new plan allocates is worth far more than land it does not. Land the draft leaves out still has a route, but a harder one.
Saltford, Bathford, Chew Magna and many other villages sit in the Green Belt and the Cotswold and Mendip Hills National Landscapes cover more. We read the boundary before anything else and tell you plainly where your land stands. Inside a village boundary or on brownfield land is a different case from open Green Belt.
Bath and North East Somerset's online planning register shows applications by address or postcode, with the officer's report and the decision. Search near your land to see what was approved or refused in the last ten years.
What we are looking for here
Brownfield, village infill and the edges the plan favours
Inside a village or town boundary
Large gardens, yards, depots and former club or chapel land within Keynsham, Midsomer Norton, Radstock and the larger villages.
Beside a settlement outside the Green Belt
Fields and paddocks touching the built edge in the Somer Valley and the southern villages, with a gate onto an adopted road.
Land the draft plan allocates
If your land is a draft allocation, it is close to its developed value and the questions are who buys it and on what terms. We can say how the draft treats it.
Questions landowners ask
Straight answers
Has the Bath and North East Somerset local plan been adopted?
My land is in the Green Belt. Is there any point?
Do bats affect development here?
Free land review
Tell us about your land
Tell us the postcode. We do the checks at our cost and telephone you within ten days.