02 May 2024
On March 22, the Secretary of State, Michael Gove, published his long-awaited decision on planning appeals by Cala Homes and Headlands Way (known locally as the Polo Field) and granted permission for 721 new houses to be built on the edge of Chiswell Green village.
These developments will increase the size of the village by 60 per cent and destroy nearly 30 acres of Green Belt.
Last Friday, campaign group Keep Chiswell Green submitted a claim to the High Court, requesting that the decision by the Secretary of State (SoS) to allow the appeals be quashed.
The claim was sealed [which means it was accepted by the court] on Monday, and notice has now been served on the defending parties – the Secretary of State, Cala, Polo and SADC.
The Chiswell Green decision is inevitably very important to the residents of Chiswell Green, which is being deluged by a myriad of speculative applications.
However, this decision has wider implications for the whole of the St Albans district, just as, in the three years since the Bullens Green Lane decision, that decision has had ramifications for the district and beyond as it has been used to support all speculative developments ever since.
In June 2021 a government minister gave the go-ahead for the erection of up to 100 dwellings at Roundhouse Farm, including 45 per cent affordable and 10 per cent self build, together with all ancillary works, despite opposition from neighbouring councils.
Already, other appeals ongoing in the district – including the Tarmac inquiry at Colney Heath and the Ragged Hall Lane hearing also in Chiswell Green to name but two – are being asked to accept the findings from the Chiswell Green inquiry that unmet housing need in the district trumps the protections of the Green Belt.
With the oldest Local Plan in the country, developers see St Albans as an easy target as SADC does not have an up-to-date rule book by which they can agree or refuse applications, and there is little hope of having a new Local Plan in place before the end of 2025.
Cala Homes alone has speculative applications that total 1,389 new houses across the district. This does not include applications by their parent company, Legal & General, which also has separate large speculative applications, and all the other smaller developers also targeting the district.
A spokesperson for Keep Chiswell Green said: “It is essential that local residents demonstrate to developers that we will not roll over readily. We accept that the district has a real housing need – in particular for first homes, affordable family homes, and properties suitable for older residents who want to downsize.
“Speculative developments say they will provide elements of this, but they don’t provide the infrastructure – the schools, GPs, dentists, community centres, shops etc – that will be needed by the residents of these new developments.
“The Section 106 mitigation payments made by developers for highways improvements and towards the NHS, education, and open and play spaces are a drop in the ocean compared to what is needed to resolve infrastructure problems that already exist in this area and will only get worse if our population expands as predicted. Infrastructure is best planned for and provided through the process of the Local Plan and this is also how development should be agreed.”
Challenging the Secretary of State’s decision is almost prohibitively expensive for a small, local campaign group such as KCG. The group needs to raise £45,000 to fund its legal costs.
Overturning the Secretary of State’s decision is important to all areas and all residents of the St Albans district to help defend against speculative development. If you support KCG’s aims, please consider making a donation by clicking on the following link: https://keepchiswellgreen.org/donate or use the QR code below.
