South West
Land in Somerset
Figures for the Somerset council area (3,452 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.
48,538
registered land outlines of an acre or more, 9,503 of them 20 acres or more.
Search them in the site finder →234
brownfield register sites, 370 hectares in all, with room for at least 4,421 homes by the council's estimate.
See them on the map →6,576
plots that may not be registered with HM Land Registry, on our sister site.
Unregistered land in Somerset →3,876
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
No Housing Delivery Test 2025 result is published for this council as a whole.
A new plan, the Somerset Local Plan 2045, 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 48,538 outlines of an acre or more, 132 (0%) are mostly in Green Belt. 12,240 (25%) are partly in flood zone 3, the highest risk.
27,763 (57%) of them are in a nutrient neutrality catchment (Brue Catchment; Parrett Catchment; River Avon SAC; River Axe SAC; Tone Catchment), 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
16% of the graded farmland outlines of an acre or more are grade 1 or 2, the best and most versatile land.
- Grade 11,690
- Grade 25,631
- Grade 331,312
- Grade 47,085
- Grade 5726
- Non-agricultural374
- Urban1,613
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
5,976 outlines of an acre or more are within 1 km of a primary or grid substation. The network operator publishes spare demand capacity at 14 substations here, about 121 MW in all.
The best 2 km square for a data centre scores 100 out of 100, and 108 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.