South West
Land in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole
Figures for the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council area (162 km²) from the open data behind our tools: registered land by size, planning constraints, farmland quality, the electricity network, brownfield sites, and land that may not be registered at all.
2,929
registered land outlines of an acre or more, 280 of them 20 acres or more.
Search them in the site finder →258
brownfield register sites, 125 hectares in all, with room for at least 10,305 homes by the council's estimate.
See them on the map →599
plots that may not be registered with HM Land Registry, on our sister site.
Unregistered land in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole →45
outlines that pass the site finder’s solar farm starting filters: 20 acres or more, near a substation, outside the main constraints and the best farmland.
Show them →Housing and the local plan
In the government’s Housing Delivery Test 2025, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole built 35% of the homes it needed over three years: presumption in favour.
The council delivered under 75% of the homes it needed, so national policy's presumption in favour of sustainable development (the "tilted balance") applies to housing applications: permission should be granted unless the harm would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits, or protective policies such as Green Belt, National Landscapes or flood risk give a clear reason to refuse.
From MHCLG’s Housing Delivery Test and the Planning Data platform’s local plan records, which some councils haven’t kept up to date. Whether the tilted balance applies to a scheme also depends on the council’s five-year land supply and the site itself: get planning advice.
Planning constraints
Of the 2,929 outlines of an acre or more, 851 (29%) are mostly in Green Belt. 487 (17%) are partly in flood zone 3, the highest risk.
963 (33%) of them are in a nutrient neutrality catchment (Poole Harbour SPA/Ramsar; River Avon SAC), where new homes and overnight stays must offset the nutrient pollution they would add, usually by buying credits.
From the government’s Planning Data platform. Check any site with Planning check.
Farmland quality
20% of the graded farmland outlines of an acre or more are grade 1 or 2, the best and most versatile land.
- Grade 11
- Grade 2204
- Grade 3135
- Grade 4435
- Grade 5238
- Non-agricultural197
- Urban1,541
Natural England’s provisional grades at the centre of each outline. A broad-scale map, so a field survey is needed for any one site.
Electricity network
886 outlines of an acre or more are within 1 km of a primary or grid substation. The network operator publishes spare demand capacity at 13 substations here, about 177 MW in all.
The best 2 km square for a data centre scores 84 out of 100, and 12 squares score 70 or more. Data centre site search →
Nearby council areas
Counts are of HM Land Registry INSPIRE title outlines (one title can have several outlines, and an outline isn’t always one field), counted under the council HM Land Registry files them with. Substations are from OpenStreetMap. None of this says whether land is for sale or could get planning permission. Sources: HM Land Registry; MHCLG Planning Data; Provisional Agricultural Land Classification © Natural England, Open Government Licence; the councils’ brownfield land registers; network operator open data; © OpenStreetMap contributors.