From the Land Value Calculator, September 2026

Don't Bet the Farm

Helping landowners understand their options under the National Planning Policy Framework in 2026.

Why some fields can now win planning permission in two years rather than seven, how to tell whether yours is one of them, and how selling a single field at the right scale secures the rest of the farm instead of eroding it.

658,000 plots in the largest builders' long-term land banks. One dot is a thousand.

7 years

the average wait for long-term land held by the largest housebuilders (CMA, 2024)

18 to 30 months

from agreement to sale on the application route, for a field that passes the screen

800 metres

the station rule: a ten-minute walk to a well-connected station, in the green belt or out of it

4.7%

of a 300 acre farm sold in the worked example; the other 95% keeps farming

Section 1The route

Seven years, and why your field need not wait

The average is real and it is not a law of nature. It is the time a local plan takes. Since August, some fields no longer have to wait for one.

In 2024 the Competition and Markets Authority counted the land held by the eleven largest housebuilders: about 1.17 million plots, of which some 658,000 sat in long-term land banks, mostly held under option and promotion agreements rather than owned. Long-term land took an average of seven years to be ready to build. Ask anyone in a housebuilder's land department what the seven years are for and you get the same answer. They are waiting for the local plan.

That is the plan-led route. Your field is put forward when the council calls for land, sifted against every other field in the district, argued into the plan at examination, allocated, and only then made the subject of an application. Each step is sensible. Together they take the best part of a decade, and this year's 30-month plan-making system shortens the middle of the process rather than the wait for it to begin.

The other route is the application. A promoter applies for outline permission now, without an allocation, and asks the council, or on appeal a planning inspector, to decide against national policy rather than against a plan that does not yet exist. For most fields that route was shut, because national policy told decision-makers to refuse outside settlements unless the council had run out of land. On 17 August 2026 a new National Planning Policy Framework took effect, and four of its decision-making policies open the route to fields that were not in it before.

Figure 1Two routes to the same permission

Plan-led Application Month 30 Four to five years sooner Year 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Year 7

Each bar is a stage. Tap one for its dates.

The queue

Call for sites, sifting, examination, allocation, application, sale. The plan-led route takes the best part of a decade, and the seven-year average is mostly the wait for the plan to exist.

The application

A promoter submits an outline application within nine months of signing and asks for a decision against national policy as it stands. The council has 13 to 26 weeks once the application is validated.

If refused

A refusal is not the end of the lane. An appeal at the promoter's cost adds six to twelve months, and the sale to a housebuilder runs alongside it.

Eighteen to thirty months

From agreement to sale, for a field that passes the screen in section 2. Typical, not promised, and years inside the queue either way.

Of major applications decided in the year to March 2026, only about one in five came inside the 13-week statutory period; the planning guarantee caps determination at 26 weeks, and an appeal adds six to twelve months. Slow by any standard except the plan's. Source: Land Value Calculator; CMA, Housebuilding market study, 2024; MHCLG planning statistics.

Four lanes, opened in August

Each lane is a decision-making policy in the new framework. A field needs only one, and the lane sets the clock.

Three questions at most

Find your lane

Where does the field sit?

If a council cannot show a five-year supply of housing land, or delivered under 75% of the homes it needed over the last three years, development outside a settlement that meets the shortfall is now acceptable in principle. It is refused only where the harms substantially outweigh the benefits, a high bar, and inspectors know it.

Green belt land that is previously developed, or that does no strong work stopping sprawl, keeping towns apart or protecting the setting of a historic town. The definition was simplified in August: a nearby listed building or a landscape designation no longer keeps a field out of it, though both still count in the decision. Grey belt can be built on where the council is short of land, the location is sustainable and the golden rules are met.

Housing within a ten-minute walk, about 800 metres, of a railway, tram or underground station with four services an hour, or two in one direction, in one of England's eighty largest travel-to-work areas, well related to an existing settlement and of a scale its infrastructure can carry, is no longer inappropriate in the green belt at all. No very special circumstances, no plan, and no dependence on whether the council has run short. Figure 2 draws the rule.

Development within a settlement boundary is to be approved unless the harms substantially outweigh the benefits. Large gardens, paddocks and land safeguarded in an old plan count; a field straddling the boundary is judged part by part.

Each lane carries the golden rules: affordable housing at 15 points above local policy, capped at 50%, a contribution to infrastructure, and public green space. They are the price of speed; on a well-located field the arithmetic carries them, as section 3 shows.

Figure 2The station rule, drawn

ExistingExisting settlementsettlement 800 m800 m StationStation

The rule, precisely: a rail, underground, tram or light-rail stop within a reasonable walk, taken as 800 metres or ten minutes; at least four services an hour, or two in one direction, through the weekday daytime; in one of the eighty largest travel-to-work areas; well related to the settlement and of a scale the infrastructure can carry. Only the part of the site inside the walk counts, and densities of at least 35 to 40 homes a hectare are expected near stations. Source: NPPF, 17 August 2026, Annex E and glossary.

The golden rules

Affordable housing at 15 points above the local requirement, capped at 50%, and 50% where no requirement exists; a contribution to infrastructure; and new or improved green space within a short walk. Where they are met, the rules carry substantial weight in the decision.

A site-specific viability case is allowed only on previously developed land with legacy costs, on strategic sites of about 1,500 homes and up, or where the scheme is unlike anything the council has tested.

What has not changed

Green belt outside the lanes still needs a plan, and a plan still needs exceptional circumstances. The golden rules apply in every lane. A refusal still goes to appeal, at the promoter's cost. And the council must still be shown a sustainable location; the lanes open the door, they do not carry you through it.

Section 2The screen

Twelve marks of a fast field

A field in the fast lane looks a particular way. Most of the marks can be checked free, from the kitchen table, before anyone visits.

The application route is fast only when nothing on the field gives a planning officer a reason to refuse that an inspector would uphold. Housebuilders' land teams run a screen before they pick up the telephone. This is that screen, written for the other side of the fence. A field with all twelve marks is rare. Nine or ten is a candidate. Fewer is a plan-led field, and honest advice says so.

Tap yes, no or not sure against each mark. The verdict updates as you go, and nothing you enter is stored or sent anywhere; it lives on this page and dies with it.

Run the screen on your own field.Tap an answer against each of the twelve marks below.
  1. 1

    Scale

    8 to 25 acres; 100 to 300 homes.

    Why it matters. One outlet sells 40 to 60 homes a year. A field one builder absorbs in four to six years draws every national housebuilder and needs no school or junction on site.

    Check it yourself. Your title plan; homes per acre from the calculator.

  2. 2

    A lane it fits

    Station walk, grey belt, a council short of land, or a settlement boundary.

    Why it matters. The lane sets the clock. Without one the field is plan-led, however good it is.

    Check it yourself. A station timetable and a map; planning.data.gov.uk; the council's monitoring report and its Housing Delivery Test result.

  3. 3

    Clean of designations

    Flood zone 1; no SSSI, ancient woodland, National Landscape or listed building on or against the field.

    Why it matters. Each is a reason for refusal an inspector will uphold.

    Check it yourself. The flood map for planning; magic.defra.gov.uk; Historic England's list.

  4. 4

    Outside the neutrality catchments

    No nutrient neutrality (Solent, Somerset Levels, Stodmarsh, the Broads); no water neutrality (Sussex North).

    Why it matters. Mitigation adds a year and a bill before a home is consented.

    Check it yourself. Natural England's catchment layers on magic.defra.gov.uk.

  5. 5

    Access you own

    A safe junction onto an adopted road from land inside your title.

    Why it matters. A neighbour's strip between field and road is a ransom, worth about a third of the uplift to whoever holds it.

    Check it yourself. Your title plan against the road.

  6. 6

    Services within reach

    Water, a sewer with capacity, electricity capacity, gravity drainage.

    Why it matters. Shortfalls are solved with money and time; the promoter should know which before signing.

    Check it yourself. Network operators' capacity maps and a water company pre-planning enquiry.

  7. 7

    Built form on two sides

    The field is tucked into a settlement edge.

    Why it matters. Rounding-off reads as sensible; pushing into open country reads as sprawl.

    Check it yourself. An aerial photograph.

  8. 8

    A walkable settlement

    Primary school, GP, shop and bus within 800 metres to two kilometres.

    Why it matters. Sustainable location is a test in every lane.

    Check it yourself. The calculator reports the distances.

  9. 9

    Ordinary landscape, ordinary soil

    Not a valued landscape in the plan; grade 3b or lower soil helps.

    Why it matters. Grade 1 and 2 soil is an argument to answer, not a bar.

    Check it yourself. The land classification layer on magic.defra.gov.uk.

  10. 10

    A single, clean title

    No old options, pre-emptions or overage; no protected tenancy; a lender who will consent.

    Why it matters. Every extra party is a month, and sometimes a veto.

    Check it yourself. Your title register and your solicitor.

  11. 11

    Values that carry the golden rules

    Sale prices strong enough that 50% affordable housing still leaves a land value.

    Why it matters. Viability arguments are not available on ordinary schemes in the lanes; the rules must be met from the arithmetic.

    Check it yourself. Run the field at 50% affordable in the calculator.

  12. 12

    A council that decides

    A high approval rate for majors, decisions taken as officers recommend, a supply position already tested at appeal.

    Why it matters. The same field is fast in one district and slow across the boundary.

    Check it yourself. MHCLG statistics; recent appeal decisions for the district.

Sources: NPPF, August 2026, policies S4, S5, GB7, GB8 and Annex E; Natural England; Environment Agency; Historic England; Stokes v Cambridge (1961) on ransom strips; Letwin (2018) on absorption. The free sources named answer most marks in an afternoon.

If your field fails the screen

Then it is a plan-led field. The honest offer is a promotion agreement drafted for the plan cycle, or no offer at all; a ten-year option on such a field is usually the wrong answer.

What slows a field down

Size above one outlet; a new junction on a trunk road; a neutrality catchment; the setting of a listed building; several owners; and, most of all, a council whose officers recommend approval and whose committee refuses.

Section 3The farm

Liquidity that shores up the farm

Selling a field at development value is not selling the farm. Done at the right scale, and in the right order, it is the one transaction that pays for everything else.

Farmers are rightly suspicious of anyone who wants their land. The instinct is old and mostly correct: land sold is land gone, and a farm is a thing you hand on, not a thing you cash in. What the instinct misses is scale.

A 300 acre farm that sells a 14 acre edge field sells under 5% of its area. What it receives is not 5% of its value. On the worked example below it is nearly five times the value of the whole farm as farmland, before tax, for a field that in a good year clears a few thousand pounds.

Table 1One field, one farm: the worked example

The farm: 300 acres of arable land at the 2025 England average of £11,000 an acre£3,300,000
The field: 14 acres on the settlement edge, inside a ten-minute walk of a well-connected station, 4.7% of the farm£154,000
Value of the field with outline consent for 180 homes at 50% affordableThe residual a housebuilder can pay£20,000,000
Less the promoter's share at 20%, paid only on completion of the sale(£4,000,000)
To the landowner before tax£16,000,000
Less capital gains tax at 24% on the gain over agricultural value, if no relief applies(£3,803,040)
To the landowner after tax£12,196,960
Farmland that buys at £11,000 an acre: after tax, or with the gain rolled over into land1,100 acres, or 1,450

Tap a line for its arithmetic.

A worked illustration, not a valued site: 180 homes at 50% affordable on a well-located edge field, at values a strong southern market can carry. On the built area, once roads and open space are netted off, 180 homes on 14 acres is about 45 to the hectare, in line with the densities expected near stations. Strutt & Parker Farmland Database 2025 for the farmland average; HMRC rates for 2026/27. The promoter's share is illustrative; shares typically run 15% to 30%, and up to 50% on more complicated projects. Figures assume a permission the land does not have, and tax depends on your circumstances and reliefs.

The whole farm as farmland£3,300,000
One field, to the landowner before tax£16,000,000

Nearly five times the whole farm, from under 5% of it.

What the money does, in order

1Inheritance tax first

Since 6 April 2026, 100% agricultural and business relief is capped at £2.5 million per person; above it the effective rate is 20%, payable over ten years. A 300 acre farm with a house and machinery sits near that line. A field with development value sits far beyond it: the development premium is outside agricultural relief, and business relief above the cap is only half. An owner who dies holding a field the market now values at £16 million can leave the family a tax bill on money they have never received. Selling the field, or settling who owns it before its value is visible, is how that problem is avoided. Advice first, agreement second, application third.

2Then the balance sheet

Rollover relief lets proceeds reinvested in qualifying business assets, including farmland, within a year before or three years after the sale defer the gain entirely; that is the 1,450 acre line in the table. Debt is the other obvious use, and after it the things a bank lends against reluctantly: a grain store, drainage, a second holding for a second child. None of these is possible from farming income. All of them are possible from one field.

3Scale is the safeguard

A field that is one twentieth of the farm changes the balance sheet without changing the business. A deal that takes the farmhouse, the yard or the best land does the opposite, and the screen in section 2 will usually reject it anyway, because the fast field is the awkward one on the edge, not the good one in the middle.

Run it on your own farm

Defaults are the worked example. Change any figure and everything below re-derives, to the same arithmetic as the table. Nothing you enter is stored or sent anywhere.

The worked illustration: £20,000,000 for 14 acres, 180 homes at 50% affordable, on a well-located edge field. Your field needs an appraisal of its own.

20%

Shares typically run 15% to 30%, and up to 50% on more complicated projects; paid only on completion of the sale.

Promoter's shareCapital gainsTo you after tax
Value with outline consent£20,000,000
Promoter's share at 20%(£4,000,000)
To you before tax£16,000,000
Capital gains at 24%, no relief(£3,803,040)
To you after tax£12,196,960
About 1,100 acresof farmland it buys after tax, at your price an acre
About 1,450 acreswith the gain rolled over into qualifying land

You sell 4.7% of the farm and receive, before tax, 4.8 times its whole value as farmland.

Illustrative, to the same basis as the worked example: capital gains at 24% on the gain over the field's agricultural value where no relief applies, before the annual exempt amount and any base cost above agricultural value; rollover relief can defer the gain entirely where the whole proceeds are reinvested in qualifying business assets within a year before or three years after the sale. Rates 2026/27. Your position turns on reliefs and circumstances, and an accountant should see it before you sign. The consented value is the one number that needs an appraisal: value your field.

You keep farming

From the day of the agreement to the day of completion, ownership, occupation and income stay yours; the promoter pays for everything and is paid only on success. Farm tenancies and agri-environment agreements on the field need checking against the agreement, which is solicitor's work rather than a reason to delay.

The tax in one place

Capital gains: 18% and 24%; rollover relief on reinvestment in business assets; business asset disposal relief at 18% may apply where the sale is part of a business, to a £1 million lifetime limit. Inheritance tax: 100% relief to £2.5 million per person, 50% above, an effective 20%, payable in ten annual instalments. Take advice before you sign anything.

Selling part, keeping the rest

The agreement should protect the land you keep: access, water and power reserved across the sold field, no severance of the yard, and an overage if the buyer later wins more homes than the price assumed.

Section 4The process

The fast lane, month by month

What a promotion agreement in the fast lane commits the promoter to, what it commits you to, and what happens when.

Under a promotion agreement the promoter funds the surveys, the design, the application and any appeal, and is paid a share of the sale price only when the consented field is sold. You farm the field until completion, are consulted at each decision point, and owe nothing if it fails; the reports pass to you. What makes the fast lane different is the timetable written into the agreement itself. Five terms do the work.

Figure 3The fast lane from signing to sale

Surveys and design Pre-application Outline submitted Determination Appeal, if refused Marketing and sale 0 6 12 18 24 30

Tap a stage for its timing.

Months from signing the promotion agreement. Typical, not promised. Ecology surveys run to seasons, so a spring signing saves a year; determination is 13 to 26 weeks from validation; the sale runs alongside the appeal where one is needed, and a housebuilder takes on reserved matters after completion. Source: Land Value Calculator; MHCLG.

Five terms that do the work

  1. A submission deadline. The outline application lodged within nine months of signing, or you may end the agreement and keep the surveys.

  2. A duty to appeal. A refusal is not the end of the lane; an appeal at the promoter's cost is part of the route, and the agreement should say so.

  3. A short term. Three to four years with one extension for a live appeal, not the ten-year term written for plan-led land.

  4. A minimum price and capped costs. A floor per acre below which you need not sell, and a short, itemised list of deductible costs, so that net proceeds means what you think it means.

  5. The rest of the farm protected. Access, services and a yard that still works, written in before anyone draws a road.

Take to the meeting

Five questions for anyone offering the fast lane

Tap a question as you ask it. For the promoter across the table, and for your solicitor and surveyor.

A caution

Everyone believes planning will be quicker than it will, including promoters. The fast lane is eighteen to thirty months from agreement to sale, not six. Anyone who quotes you less has not yet had a committee move an item to next month.

See what your field is worth

The calculator is free, reports the walking distances the screen asks for, and runs the golden rules against your field's own numbers. The result is the starting point for every conversation on this page.

Value your field at landvaluecalculator.co.uk

Questions about a particular field: land@britishholdings.com