Is there a land owner registry? (Farmland)

[NOTANUM]

Hi,
Is there a way to find out who owns a field? We are considering an area but there's a large field behind it which seems to be green belt. It would be interested to know who owns it in order to guage if it might become housing in future.
No-one local seems to know - or aren't saying!

You could try the land registry? I'm sure most owned land has to have a land registry number.

Landregistry.co.uk - costs about £3. There’s a map feature so you can search like that. It’s possible that it’s unregistered land though, if it hasn’t been sold for decades.

Use the official site though: eservices.landregistry.gov.uk/eservices/FindAProperty/view/MapEnquiryInit.do

Even if privately owned it could well become housing. What often happens is land developers contact the owners on a kind of 'no win no fee' basis to take the land in for planning, with the developer then taking a percentage of its final sale value to the builder.
Look at the area in general. How close is this field to existing development (you say the house is behind it so I imagine very).
Bear in mind when this pandemic is over councils will be falling short on their housing supply so a site could well get planning.

I don't think you can ever look at a field and say it won't get planning, unless there is something special in it like a site of scientific interest etc

You should be able to look up the Local Plan on the councils website to find out whether its an allocated housing site. You could also look in the Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (or similar) to see if it's ever been put forward for consideration as housing land by the council. Land owners will nominate their fields, the council will assess them and choose which ones to allocate housing or employment and include in the local plan for the next 20yrs. Worth checking if there is a Neighbourhood Plan too. Apart from that it could still come forward as a windfall site.

The land ownership is not going to tell you if it is in the green belt or likely to be built on, unless it comes back as owned by Homes & Communities Agency. A more accurate check would be the allocations plan published on the councils website. Search for local plan and name of the Local Authority- there should be and adopted plan and some sort of map which tells you if it is allocated for housing. it will also show the extent of the green belt.

This is perfect information so thanks to all.
I am off to check the land registry and the strategic housing land availability assessment. I tried the local council website and nothing came up.

To answer @GokartMozart question.. There is very limited housing in the area already as it's the edge of a semi urban area and then there are fields to the next urban area. It is high end housing if that is relevant. I also think it would be a struggle to get a road and services down to the field but equally I know they can compulsorily compel people to sell to make it happen.

One thing I have seen in the past is some one buy the land behind the house and rent it back to the farmer for free as then he can stop anyone building behind his house, the farmer keeps the field for use you keep the view