Development land in Kent: 1,590 brownfield sites
The 12 planning authorities in Kent have published 1,590 sites on their brownfield land registers — land the councils themselves assessed as suitable for housing. Together: about 1,406 hectares and an estimated 47,571 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thanet | 474 | 95 | 3,530 |
| Sevenoaks | 191 | 266 | 6,503 |
| Maidstone | 158 | 141 | 5,324 |
| Medway | 135 | 43 | 2,642 |
| Tunbridge Wells | 132 | 52 | 2,973 |
| Dover | 129 | 126 | 4,187 |
| Gravesham | 97 | 104 | 5,582 |
| Dartford | 94 | 359 | 10,138 |
| Canterbury | 77 | 50 | 1,694 |
| Swale | 58 | 113 | 4,998 |
| Ashford | 28 | 44 | — |
| Tonbridge and Malling | 17 | 12 | — |
The Kent districts plus Medway, which is a unitary authority but part of the county geographically.
Largest sites in Kent
| Site | Authority | Hectares | Max dwellings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eastern Quarry (Whitecliffe), Watling Street, Swanscombe | Dartford | 228.1 | 3970 |
| Fort Halstead, Crow Drive, Halstead | Sevenoaks | 62.7 | 300 |
| Fort Halstead, Crow Drive, TN14 7BU | Sevenoaks | 62.7 | 750 |
| H2(2) | Maidstone | 46.7 | 1300 |
| Ebbsfleet Central including car parks and land east of International Way | Dartford | 31.9 | 2211 |
| Northfleet Embankment West | Gravesham | 31.1 | 532 |
| Ebbsfleet Green (Northfleet West Sub Station) | Dartford | 27.4 | 3 |
| St James Pit, St James Lane, Horns Cross, Greenhithe | Dartford | 21.1 | 700 |
| Land at Chislet Colliery, Hersden | Canterbury | 19.2 | 370 |
| Crown Quay Lane, Sittingbourne, Kent, ME10 3ST | Swale | 18.2 | 650 |
| Thames Europort (Dartford International Ferry Terminal), Clipper Boulevard, Dart | Dartford | 17.9 | — |
| Land West of Rushenden Road, Queenborough | Swale | 13.3 | 379 |
Source: the councils’ own brownfield land registers, published via planning.data.gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0. 2 sites in Kent record an area that cannot be right (the register's hectares column sometimes holds square metres) and are left out of the hectare total. 29 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. 238 of the 1590 sites (15%) state no dwelling capacity, so the capacity figure covers the 1352 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. 47,571 across Kent 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.