Development land in Hertfordshire: 582 brownfield sites
The 10 planning authorities in Hertfordshire have published 582 sites on their brownfield land registers — land the councils themselves assessed as suitable for housing. Together: about 579 hectares and an estimated 28,425 dwellings of capacity.
Rank these sites with constraints netted off →
Which councils hold the land
Every authority publishes its register separately, so these totals exist nowhere else. Click a council for its full register.
| Authority | Sites | Hectares | Max dwellings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Welwyn Hatfield | 106 | 79 | 5,288 |
| Hertsmere | 101 | 72 | 2,394 |
| Watford | 85 | 95 | 8,440 |
| Three Rivers | 62 | 49 | 1,762 |
| North Hertfordshire | 57 | 40 | 1,310 |
| Broxbourne | 42 | 42 | — |
| St Albans | 42 | 34 | 1,535 |
| Dacorum | 41 | 72 | 3,195 |
| East Hertfordshire | 28 | 23 | 992 |
| Stevenage | 18 | 73 | 3,509 |
The ten Hertfordshire districts.
Largest sites in Hertfordshire
| Site | Authority | Hectares | Max dwellings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Town Centre | Stevenage | 51.7 | 2000 |
| Kings Langley Employment Area, Kings Langley | Three Rivers | 30.9 | 180 |
| Land at Riverwell and Watford General Hospital | Watford | 18.1 | 1383 |
| Delamare Road, Cheshunt | Broxbourne | 12.5 | — |
| Hemel Hempstead Hospital site Hillfield Road | Dacorum | 11.7 | 400 |
| Welwyn Garden City - Broadwater Road West SPD Site (North) | Welwyn Hatfield | 9.1 | 1403 |
| Griffiths Way | St Albans | 8.5 | 92 |
| Hatfield - Onslow St Audreys School | Welwyn Hatfield | 8.3 | 86 |
| Land at Tesco, Lower High Street | Watford | 7.6 | 1338 |
| Land at Watford Junction | Watford | 7.5 | 1232 |
| Land at Asda, Dome Roundabout | Watford | 7.0 | 422 |
| Former Sappi Nash Mills | Dacorum | 6.7 | 38 |
Source: the councils’ own brownfield land registers, published via planning.data.gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0. 12 further entries repeat the area of a site already listed (councils often record a whole site's area against each phase), so that land is counted once. 126 of the 582 sites (22%) state no dwelling capacity, so the capacity figure covers the 456 that do — the real total is higher.
Before you get attached to one
A register entry is not planning permission and not an offer to sell. It records that the council thinks housing could work there. Whether the owner agrees is a separate conversation, and whether a scheme gets approved is a third.
- Net off the constraints first. Green belt, Flood Zone 3 and listed buildings kill more register sites than anything else.
- The dwelling figure is the council’s opinion. 28,425 across Hertfordshire is a planning-policy estimate, not a set of designs.
- Price it off recorded sales. HM Land Registry Price Paid tells you what actually sold; work the residual land value from there.
- England has no zoning. The Local Plan and the Use Classes Order decide what is achievable, application by application.
How to read a register entry properly → · Five ways to find UK development land →
GoSiteHunt is an advertising and analysis platform, not a real estate agent or planning consultancy. Everything here is indicative screening from public data — not a valuation, not planning advice, and never a substitute for the councils’ own records or your own professional advisers.