South East
Land in Southampton
Figures for the Southampton council area (50 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.
1,006
registered land outlines of an acre or more, 83 of them 20 acres or more.
Search them in the site finder →37
brownfield register sites, 72 hectares in all, with room for at least 0 homes by the council's estimate.
See them on the map →615
plots that may not be registered with HM Land Registry, on our sister site.
Unregistered land in Southampton →65
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, Southampton built 30% 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 Amended Core Strategy, adopted March 2015 (11 years ago; plans are meant to be reviewed at least every five years).
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 Southampton’s larger outlines are mostly in Green Belt. 105 (10%) are partly in flood zone 3, the highest risk.
Practically all of them are in a nutrient neutrality catchment (River Itchen SAC; Solent), 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
5% of the graded farmland outlines of an acre or more are grade 1 or 2, the best and most versatile land.
- Grade 15
- Grade 492
- Grade 51
- Non-agricultural83
- Urban788
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
742 outlines of an acre or more are within 1 km of a primary or grid substation. The network operator publishes spare demand capacity at 9 substations here, about 133 MW in all.
The best 2 km square for a data centre scores 85 out of 100, and 3 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.