Selling a Paddock or Small Field for Development

For years, most new housing came from large sites of hundreds of homes, built by a handful of national housebuilders. Those sites take a long time to deliver, and councils that relied on them often fell behind. The government has tried repeatedly to change that balance, and the August 2026 National Planning Policy Framework goes further than before.

Under policy HO6 of the new framework, local plans must allocate at least 10% of their housing requirement on sites of up to 1 hectare (about 2.5 acres), and a further 10% on sites of between 1 and 2.5 hectares (about 2.5 to 6 acres), unless there are strong reasons why that cannot be done. That creates a real need for exactly the kind of land many paddock owners have, and it makes a council's call for sites more worth answering. Our guide to call for sites and local plans explains how to put land forward.

Small sites also suit a different kind of buyer: regional and local housebuilders who build a few dozen homes at a time and are often keen to find land they can start on quickly.

On small sites, the access point often decides whether a scheme works at all. A new road junction needs enough visibility for the speed of the traffic, and that visibility has to be achievable over land that is either yours or public highway.

Visibility is measured as a splay: a triangle drawn from a point set back from the road edge, often 2.4 metres, to points along the road in each direction. How far along depends on how fast traffic actually travels, so a 30mph village street needs far less than a fast country road. Hedges, banks and walls inside the splay usually have to be cut back or removed and kept low for good, and that is often where a neighbour's land comes in.

If your only access is a field gate onto a narrow lane, or across land owned by someone else, tell us early. There are often solutions. A neighbouring owner can be brought into the agreement, the highway verge may be wider than it looks, or a smaller scheme may need a less demanding access. Our guide to access and ransom strips explains what to look for and how third-party land affects value.

It is also worth knowing where the public footpaths and bridleways run. A right of way across a paddock does not stop development, but it has to be kept open or formally diverted, which shapes the layout.

You can keep horses on the land until completion. Nothing changes on the ground while planning is being pursued, and the agreement sets out how much notice you get before you need to move them.

Permanent stables and hardstanding are not agricultural buildings, so in some cases the land they occupy can count as previously developed land, which can help the planning case. Whether it does depends on whether the structures are permanent and lawful, so tell us exactly what is on the land and how long it has been there. Mobile field shelters do not count.

If the paddock is used under a grazing licence by someone else, that can usually be brought to an end with notice. See our guide to tenancies and vacant possession.

Working Out the Net Developable Area

Housebuilders price a site on the land that can actually take houses, called the net developable area. It includes the homes, gardens, parking and estate roads, but not the open space, drainage basins, landscape buffers and retained hedgerows around them. On a small site, those take a larger share than people expect.

On the edge of a village, a smaller number of larger homes can sometimes be more appropriate than the density a calculator suggests. Councils also look at the mix of homes the village needs, which can include bungalows for older people or smaller homes for first-time buyers.