Essex, East of England
Land in Epping Forest
Figures for the Epping Forest council area (339 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.
4,847
registered land outlines of an acre or more, 880 of them 20 acres or more.
Search them in the site finder →130
brownfield register sites, 85 hectares in all, with room for at least 875 homes by the council's estimate.
See them on the map →552
plots that may not be registered with HM Land Registry, on our sister site.
Unregistered land in Epping Forest →12
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, Epping Forest built 66% 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.
Its adopted local plan is the Epping Forest District Local Plan 2011-2033, adopted March 2023.
A new plan, the Epping Forest District Draft Local Plan 2016, 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
Of the 4,847 outlines of an acre or more, 4,214 (87%) are mostly in Green Belt. 532 (11%) are partly in flood zone 3, the highest risk.
From the government’s Planning Data platform. Check any site with Planning check.
Farmland quality
43% of the graded farmland outlines of an acre or more are grade 1 or 2, the best and most versatile land.
- Grade 21,733
- Grade 32,142
- Grade 4181
- Non-agricultural297
- Urban494
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
332 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 86 out of 100, and 6 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.