10 Dec 2024
Changes to SADC’s planning process have been welcomed by another local campaigner.
Gee Smedley, who runs the CLASH and Save North St Albans Greenbelt campaigns, said major alterations to a scheme for 150 houses on land off Harpenden Road were being dismissed as non-material amendments.
“Anything to do with highways is material and therefore needs to go back to planning, it can’t just be signed off,” she explained. “But conveniently there is no complaints process for SADC’s planning department, you have to go to the Local Government Ombudsman.”
The outline planning application for the site was granted with 38 conditions attached, which developer Cala Homes are seeking to get discharged.
To date they have not revealed details of their off-site highways scheme, which was a condition of the plans being approved in 2021, or how they will provide flood mitigation within the scheme.
“The swales on the site are in the wrong place and do not have the required capacity for a development of this size – we have been advised they need to be 9m but are only about 2.5m wide,” Gee explained.
She said Cala have also changed the designs surrounding the access road so it is no longer two-lanes, suggesting it is a non-material amendment and ignoring the potential build-up of traffic wanting to get on and off the site.
Gee said: “The Royal Town Planning Institute is clear: ‘If the change is likely to have amenity, highways or other impacts, increase the size or clearly change the appearance of a development, or conflict with conditions imposed it is not likely to be considered to be non-material.’
“It is our firm view that planning applications 5/2024/1825, 5/2024/1783, 5/2024/1676 are material. The applications relate to highways and amenity. Therefore, there should have been public consultation and publishing of residents’ comments. We believe the applications to discharge conditions have failed to meet the necessary hurdles to adequately discharge the conditions.”
CLASH also asked why residents and stakeholder comments were not being published on SADC’s website for important planning applications related to large development schemes.
Gee said: “The lack of transparency is a failure of the democratic process. Given it is the Liberal Democrat-led council overseeing this process, we feel they should be aware of what a ‘democratic’ process means. There is no precedence under which comments on planning matters should not be published.”
CLASH logged a complaint about SADC’s procedures with the Ombudsman, accusing SADC of removing the ability of residents to comment on important factors associated with planning applications.
“The council no longer publishes planning comments on applications to discharge conditions and make amendments. This is totally wrong, lacks the necessary public scrutiny and leaves residents without the necessary input on important planning matters. The decision-making is no longer transparent and accountability has reduced.
“As a residents group, we have hired experts to provide evidence in planning applications. This has cost residents thousands of pounds. This evidence should be published against the applications including conditional discharges and amendments.”
But following last week’s planning policy and climate committee meeting, the situation appears to have changed.
Gee added: “I think we declare victory! There is no reason why all comments, whether consulted or unsolicited should not be published. We thank the councillors who worked on this from across parties to hold the council to account – Cllrs Hobday, Lilico, Webb, Smith and Hilton – all making it very clear that public scrutiny should be applied on all planning applications.
“It was also made very clear that any changes to highways are material amendments. We expect our comments against the amendments and conditions in the Cala application in North St Albans to be published immediately.”
