Hillingdon Council’s Mad Bess Cottage sale grows from 0.3 to 4 acres of Green Belt, for “a larger garden”

Hillingdon Council is selling Mad Bess Cottage in Ruislip Woods. In February its notice covered ‘about 0.3 acres’. On 16 September it advertised its intention to sell ‘about 4 acres’. Objections close at 5pm on Thursday 22 October.

Object in a few minutes using our form. It sends your objection to the Council and the Secretary of State, and emails you a copy.

The Council’s reason, passed to us by Cllr Philip Corthorne from Cabinet Member Cllr Nick Denys, is to have “the option to attach the field to the sale of Mad Bess Cottage to create a larger garden space.”

So who needs four acres of Green Belt for a garden?

What is being sold

The land is public open space and Green Belt. The extra land is the access drive from Breakspear Road North and the field between the cottage and the road.  It sits next to Ruislip Woods National Nature Reserve.

Mad Bess Cottage

The cottage is listed by Coopers Residential as sold subject to contract at £895,000. Zoopla’s listing history shows it was first listed at £1.1m in November 2025, then reduced to £1m in January 2026 and to £895,000 in August.

What the Council says

Cllr Denys says: “There are no plans to change the planning status of the field.” We are not saying anyone plans to build here. As far as we know, no planning application exists.

But a seller’s promise does not bind a buyer. Once the field is out of public ownership, the one real safeguard would be a restrictive covenant on the title. We asked whether the sale will include one. We have had no answer.

So what could happen? That is the question Conservative councillors have been asking about Green Belt all summer. We applied their logic to Mad Bess: If we believe the Conservatives’ campaigns about development on the Green Belt being unstoppable, what about Mad Bess?

What you can do before 22 October

1. Use our form. It sends your objection to the Council and to the Secretary of State’s Planning Casework Unit at the same time, and emails you a copy. Choose the reasons you agree with and put them in your own words.
2. Or email estatesandvaluation@hillingdon.gov.uk, or write to the Development and Disposal Surveyor, Property & Estates, Civic Centre, High Street, Uxbridge UB8 1UW, by 5pm on Thursday 22 October. If you do, copy your email to the Planning Casework Unit too, at pcu@communities.gov.uk, so the Secretary of State sees it as well.
3. Ask your Ruislip ward councillors whether they support selling four acres of Green Belt, yes or no. They are Cllr Philip Corthorne, Cllr Peter Smallwood and Cllr John Riley, and Mad Bess Cottage is in their ward.

Read the next Mad Bess Cottage article:

Twelve questions about the Mad Bess Cottage sale, and no answers before objections close

We are asking the Council to explain why it needs to sell four acres of Green Belt, and to answer residents’ questions before the consultation closes.