- Planning authority
- Colchester City Council
- Postcodes
- CO1, CO2, CO3, CO4
- Noon sun, 21 March
- About 38°
- Shadow from a 5 m eaves line
- About 6.4 m
- Planning plan
- Local Plan
- County
- Essex
Before you decide in Colchester
As the neighbour, you’ll live with the new home’s shadow. Picture the spring equinox in Colchester: at midday the sun climbs to about 38°, and a new home with 5 m eaves shades roughly 6.4 m of ground behind it. Near the winter solstice, with the sun at around 15°, that shade stretches much further.
In a joint venture you approve the layout before the application goes in, so we can show you where the shadow will fall on your garden at different times of year. Keeping the eaves low or setting the home further back can make a real difference.
How we’d take it forward in Colchester
Once you’ve chosen a structure, we draft heads of terms setting out who funds what, your share or the home you receive, deadlines and protections. Your own solicitor reviews them and the development agreement that follows. Only then do we commission surveys and design, agree the key layout points with you, and submit the application to Colchester City Council.
Free plot appraisal
We look at your title plan, access, neighbouring homes and the council’s planning policies, then talk through what might be built and whether a joint venture or a simpler sale suits you better.
Choose the structure
We explain the options side by side: a share of sale proceeds, a share of profit, a home back for your land, or a land payment plus a share. You choose what fits your plans and appetite for risk.
Development agreement
Your own solicitor and ours turn the heads of terms into a binding agreement. Your solicitor advises on the security that fits, such as the land staying in your name until a set stage or a legal charge.
Sale or handover
The new homes are sold and the proceeds are split as agreed through the solicitors, or your new home is handed over with its warranty, title and certificates in place.
Worth checking early
- We’re a new brand within the S&K Group, so ask for open-book reporting and check every protection in writing.
- Development lenders usually want security over the land, which your solicitor needs to fit around your own protections.
- A joint venture takes longer than any sale: planning, then building, then selling or handover.
Questions about garden plots in Colchester
How long does a garden joint venture in Colchester usually take?
Longer than a sale, because planning, building and selling all happen before you receive your share. The council’s decision time, the build programme and the market drive the timing. We give you a realistic range for each stage after the appraisal rather than a single promised date.
Does my land stay in my name during a joint venture in Colchester?
It can. One option keeps the land in your name until an agreed stage, with us building under a licence. Another transfers it earlier with a legal charge in your favour. Your solicitor advises which suits you, bearing in mind that a lender funding the build will want security too.
Who decides planning for a joint venture plot in Colchester?
Colchester City Council decides, using the council’s Local Plan and national policy in the NPPF. We prepare and fund the application and deal with the council’s questions, but no developer can promise the outcome. If planning is refused, you keep your land, and in the usual structure the planning costs stay with us.
Can I take a new home back instead of cash in Colchester?
Yes, if the plot can support it. Under a homes-for-land joint venture, one of the finished homes on your plot, or the only one, is transferred to you with its own title and paperwork. The agreement fixes the specification and the timetable.
Other options in Colchester
- Garage courts and yards
- Plot feasibility and design
- Tandem and landlocked plots
- Planning permission for a garden plot
- Combine gardens with your neighbours
- Sell subject to planning