Backland development in Harpenden

If your house in Harpenden has a long back garden, a wide side plot or a row of garages behind it, there may be space for a new home. Backland Development gives you two ways to use that land. You can sell or partner on the plot and carry on living in your house, or you can keep it and have us design, get planning for and build a new home there.

Every enquiry from Harpenden and nearby places such as St Albans, Luton and Hemel Hempstead starts the same way: a free garden plot appraisal with no obligation. We look at the plot from a desk, talk it through with you and arrange a visit if it looks viable. Planning decisions rest with St Albans City and District Council, so we never promise an outcome.

Planning authority
St Albans City and District Council
Postcodes
AL3, AL5
Noon sun, 21 March
About 38°
Noon sun, 21 December
About 15°
Planning plan
Local Plan
County
Hertfordshire

The kinds of plot we look at in Harpenden

The classic garden plot is a long back garden with enough width beside the house for a driveway. If you have one in Harpenden, that’s a good starting point, but it isn’t the only kind we consider. Corner plots and wide side gardens can work well because they often face a road already. Garage courts and yards behind houses may have access in place. Even land with no obvious way in can sometimes work, if a neighbour’s garden or a shared drive can provide one.

Planning and light in Harpenden

If your plot is in Harpenden, the application will normally go to St Albans City and District Council, which judges it against its Local Plan and the council’s design guide or supplementary planning document. Those documents set local expectations on design, parking, garden sizes and how new homes should relate to the street, while the NPPF sets the wider national framework. For an address in AL3 and AL5 or nearby, the exact postcode also tells us which flood maps, sewer records and tree orders to check. Where it helps, we ask the council for pre-application advice before anything is drawn in detail.

Section showing noon sun and shadows in Harpenden: about 38 degrees on 21 March and 15 degrees on 21 December21 m21 Mar, noon: sun 38°, shadow 6.4 m21 Dec, noon: sun 15°, shadow 19.0 mExistingNew home
This section is worked out for the latitude of Harpenden: around 38° of sun at midday in late March and about 15° at midwinter. It shows why the gap between your house and a new home behind it is about light as well as privacy. Garden assumed to face north.

What we can do in Harpenden

Sell or partner

Design and build

By plot type

What happens next

If you’d like to talk it through first, call us. There’s no script and no hard sell. We’ll ask a few questions about your plot in Harpenden, explain how the free appraisal works and answer what we can on the spot. If it makes sense to go further, we’ll agree the next step together; if it doesn’t, you’ve lost nothing.

Questions about garden plots in Harpenden

How much is my garden plot in Harpenden worth?

There’s no honest figure without looking at the plot. Value depends on location, size, access, title and planning, and costs such as a long drive or difficult ground come straight off what the land is worth. Our free appraisal looks at all of that before we talk about price.

What happens if planning is refused for a plot in Harpenden?

If you agreed a sale subject to planning, the contract doesn’t complete and you keep your land. We’ll then look at the reasons St Albans City and District Council gave and tell you honestly whether a revised application, an appeal or stopping is the sensible choice. Nothing about your own house changes.

Can you build a house in my back garden in Harpenden that I keep?

Yes. Our design and build route covers the survey, design, planning application, Building Regulations, construction and handover, while the land and the new home stay yours. You can sell it, let it or use it for family. You’ll get a written quote once the design and survey are done, and any earlier price range is a guide only.

Do you look at garage courts and yards in Harpenden?

Yes. Garage courts, lock-up blocks, old yards and outbuildings behind houses can sometimes take a new home, especially where a vehicle access already exists. We check who owns the access, what rights others have over it and what the ground was used for, as part of the free appraisal.

Nearby

Find out what your garden could become

Free garden plot appraisal. No cost, no obligation, and a straight answer if it won’t work.