29 Aug 2024
The brakes are off! SADC has announced preparations for a possible early submission of its long-awaited Local Plan, in a bid to shield against a wave of speculative development across the district.
SADC planned to submit its draft Local Plan by April 2025, however, in light of the proposed changes to national planning law, the council now plans to bring the timing forward.
Without doing so, the council says it would be forced to delay submission by 2-3 years in order to identify sites for a further 11,000 homes that the new Government proposals require.
The council recognises the urgent need for housing locally, particularly family sized starter and social homes, and any delay will have serious consequences on its ability to get these delivered. It would also mean that SADC will be much less able to defend areas of the Green Belt where most potential harm from development would be caused.
SADC leader Cllr Paul de Kort, chair of the council’s panning policy and climate committee, which is overseeing the development of the new Local Plan, said: “The council must have a robust new Local Plan in place as soon as possible, especially given the government’s proposed reforms.
“A vast amount of work has been done over the last three years to bring us to the point where we have sites that could provide the 15,000 homes for this district that we were required to put forward. It is a Plan that will contain details of the necessary transport, school and health infrastructure that should accompany the housing provision; along with statements about the type of homes to be offered. There will also be the maximum environmental protection allowed.”
To achieve this accelerated timetable for submission, the planning policy and climate committee meeting scheduled for October 3 will be brought forward to September 23. Should the committee agree, the draft Local Plan Regulation 19 technical consultation will begin on September 26 and continue for six weeks.
Feedback from the Regulation 19 technical consultation will be considered by the planning policy and climate committee on November 28 when it will also consider submission of the Plan to government.
Full Council will consider the content of the draft Plan in the autumn.
Cllr de Kort concluded: “By bringing forward the timetable for the Local Plan, the council has the best chance of getting a new Local Plan agreed ahead of the Government’s new deadline. This will set the strategic foundation needed both to defend St Albans district from ad hoc building in the Green Belt and to set out the policies that will mean any future development meets strict guidelines for sustainable development. It will mean many more homes locally of the type that are in severe shortage, with the infrastructure and local green spaces needed to support them too.”
Meanwhile, Cllr de Kort has also responded to a recent opinion piece in the St Albans Times calling for the council to take its time over the submission of the Plan.
Vanessa Gregory wrote: “The time St Albans has to redraft has been extended to December 2026 rather than summer-autumn of 2025. This gives others, including stakeholders, more time to properly assess the infrastructure needed. Not a small point.
“In 2021 the East of England Local Government Association talent bank conducted a review of the Plan making governance in St Albans. It didn’t make for happy reading. They reported back that the council needed to resource both in staff and budget to ensure a Local Plan was prepared in a timely manner.
“If that has happened then we should feel more confident that this time the officers will offer the leader of the council sage advice, even if it isn’t what he wants to hear.”
Cllr de Kort responded: “I agree with a lot of what Vanessa said, especially the need for all of us to think of the future for younger generations, but she seemed to be operating under a misapprehension that the Labour proposals allow councils like ours to take good time while we absorb and roll out an adjusted Plan.
“At the moment, this is not the case; there is no suggestion that the Government will require developers to freeze any speculative applications until December ’26 ( or whenever) whilst we work up very major changes to our Plan. We therefore will suffer all the piecemeal, unplanned developments that she and everyone else should be keen to avoid.
“She also suggests I should take on board the advice of officers, as if I am not. Quite the opposite is in fact the case. [Former SADC leader] Chris White and now me have been very careful to follow officer, professional and peer advice in developing this Plan and I have done so in considering whether an acceleration now is wise. It was the last, Conservative leadership who put together their own Plan against such advice, causing us all to face the additional pressures that having the oldest Plan in the country brings once York’s is approved – which is expected soon.”
