If the ownership of the land is registered, you can find out through the Land Registry (via www.landregisteronline.gov.uk), where you can obtain a title plan defining the property for £3 and for another £3 a title register where you can find out who owns the house or land, price paid/ value stated if it has been sold since April 2000 and any rights of way or restrictions on the land. You might need to provide a map to identify the land, if there’s no obvious address, and you can get a map from a stationer that sells Ordnance Survey maps, or there are several online sources of OS maps you can try. If the ownership isn’t registered, it’s possible the site has some planning history, so you can call in at your council’s planning department and look up the planning records. If there have been applications in the past, the forms will have the owner’s name on them. Failing that, it’s down to old-fashioned detective work, asking neighbours, local shops and farmers and so on. Access through a parking area raises a number of questions. Who owns that area and would they grant a right of access? If that hurdle is overcome, there’s still the possible planning issue of loss of an existing parking area that could trip up an application. Try having an informal chat with your council’s planners to see how they feel about this, and about development of this land generally.