Development land in West Sussex: 381 brownfield sites
The 7 planning authorities in West Sussex have published 381 sites on their brownfield land registers — land the councils themselves assessed as suitable for housing. Together: about 218 hectares and an estimated 12,778 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mid Sussex | 100 | 58 | 2,491 |
| Worthing | 64 | 33 | 2,409 |
| Crawley | 48 | 22 | 2,355 |
| Horsham | 48 | 33 | 1,558 |
| Adur | 46 | 19 | 1,971 |
| Arun | 46 | 27 | 1,327 |
| Chichester | 29 | 27 | 667 |
The seven West Sussex districts.
Largest sites in West Sussex
| Site | Authority | Hectares | Max dwellings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Former Sewage Works, Fairbridge Way, Burgess Hill | Mid Sussex | 10.5 | 325 |
| Littlehampton - West Bank | Arun | 8.5 | 620 |
| Former Novartis Pharmaceuticals (South) | Horsham | 7.5 | 300 |
| Land south of Graylingwell Drive, Chichester, West Sussex | Chichester | 7.4 | 160 |
| HMRC, Barrington Road, Worthing | Worthing | 6.8 | 254 |
| Charlwoods Industrial Estate, East Grinstead | Mid Sussex | 5.0 | 5 |
| Thakeham Tiles Thakeham | Horsham | 4.9 | 90 |
| Parsonage Farm, Parsonage Road, Horsham (North Horsham) | Horsham | 4.5 | 127 |
| Western side of Victoria Road, Burgess Hill | Mid Sussex | 4.4 | 51 |
| Centenary House, Worthing | Worthing | 3.9 | 250 |
| Earnley Concourse, Clappers Lane, Earnley | Chichester | 3.5 | 30 |
| Land North of Ann Street and South of Union Place | Worthing | 3.3 | — |
Source: the councils’ own brownfield land registers, published via planning.data.gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0. 3 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. 73 of the 381 sites (19%) state no dwelling capacity, so the capacity figure covers the 308 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. 12,778 across West Sussex 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.