28 Jul 2024
There will be no further debate involving all St Albans district councillors on Green Belt development proposed in the Local Plan, the leader of SADC has confirmed.
The confirmation came as Cllr Paul de Kort was being quizzed by opposition councillors at the recent full council meeting.
Labour’s Cllr Mike Hobday asked him: “I would suggest to the leader of the council that allocation of strategic Green Belt land for housing in the Local Plan is the most significant and far-reaching decision that this council will take all year. In the light of that, will the leader give this chamber the opportunity to express its views on proposals that could have a devastating impact on Green Belt land in the district.”
Cllr de Kort replied: “Before you were elected, Cllr Hobday, this matter came forward and was rejected overwhelmingly. We have a group, [the planning, policy and climate committee] which has been looking at this for three years at least.
“We have expertise in that committee, and I see absolutely no value at all in having a full council meeting where every single ward councillor would make a case for their own group. This has to be done professionally in a technocratic way, and that’s the best way to get the right decision.
“Again, I’ll remind you that this council is the only council in the country that has had two failed Local Plans. We must do this professionally and properly this time. The previous ones failed because local politicians playing games decided to act against expert and officer advice. We are not going to do that.
“We are not that administration.”
Cllr Hobday said after the meeting: “Allocations of strategic Green Belt housing land for development in the Local Plan is the most significant and far-reaching decision that this council will take all year.
“It’s a scandal that the Liberal Democrat administration is denying the full council meeting to express its views on proposals which will have a devastating impact on our Green Belt land. We feel particularly passionately about the threat to the Green Belt on Shenley Lane in London Colney, south of Napsbury Park, but the council is under-allocating previously developed land and over-allocating important Green Belt.”
The draft Local Plan is currently being amended following a major public consultation last year, and may include some new sites that have been suggested as suitable for development. It may also exclude some sites that were put forward but have been deemed less suitable on further examination.
This revised draft will be published in October and then undergo a two-month consultation when residents, businesses, community groups and other organisations can give their views.
All feedback will once again be considered and it will then have to undergo an examination by a Government-appointed Planning Inspector before it can be adopted.
The draft Local Plan will allow for the building of 15,000 new homes in the years to 2041, a figure that meets the current Government requirement.
