Essex, East of England
Land in Colchester
Figures for the Colchester council area (332 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.
4,467
registered land outlines of an acre or more, 798 of them 20 acres or more.
Search them in the site finder →31
brownfield register sites, 44 hectares in all, with room for at least 314 homes by the council's estimate.
See them on the map →695
plots that may not be registered with HM Land Registry, on our sister site.
Unregistered land in Colchester →265
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, Colchester built 109% of the homes it needed over three years: no consequence.
The council delivered at least 95% of the homes it needed.
Its adopted local plan is the Tendring District Local Plan 2013-2033 and Beyond: North Essex Authorities' Shared Strategic Section 1, adopted February 2021 (5 years ago; plans are meant to be reviewed at least every five years).
A new plan, the Colchester Local Plan Review, is at early consultation (Regulation 18).
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
None of Colchester’s larger outlines are mostly in Green Belt. 550 (12%) are partly in flood zone 3, the highest risk.
From the government’s Planning Data platform. Check any site with Planning check.
Farmland quality
49% of the graded farmland outlines of an acre or more are grade 1 or 2, the best and most versatile land.
- Grade 164
- Grade 21,787
- Grade 31,826
- Grade 482
- Grade 520
- Non-agricultural71
- Urban549
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
548 outlines of an acre or more are within 1 km of a primary or grid substation.
The best 2 km square for a data centre scores 47 out of 100. 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.