01 Oct 2026
Almost 10 acres of Green Belt land in Sandridge are to be concreted over with a massive development of 84 homes after councillors voted to approve a controversial new housing scheme.
Arable land behind Shottfield Close in the village was given the green light for housing at last night’s meeting of SADC’s development management committee.
This is despite the recent adoption of the St Albans Local Plan, which Lib Dem councillors claimed would protect the district from speculative development.
The Local Plan identifies where more than 15,000 homes should be built across the district, with sites selected through a rigorous process intended to consider housing alongside infrastructure, transport, services and the wider spatial strategy. Shottfield Close is not included.
However, it has been assessed as grey belt, which opened it up for housing as an appropriate development.
Speaking at the meeting, Sandridge ward councillor Simon Johns, who is also lead councillor for housing and homelessness in the district, said: “I believe this speculative and unplanned development is unnecessary in the sense of creating homes that will be truly affordable for the people of Sandridge or the district.
“Official statistics and peer-reviewed academic papers and most people’s experience have debunked the notion that building more homes will reduce average selling prices, certainly in areas with massive latent demand such as south-east England. It’s like adding a fourth lane to the M25, destructive and self-defeating…
“Unfortunately for our countryside, the current Labour Government has doubled down on its ignorance by hugely weakening Green Belt protections. The grey belt label, the NPPF [National Planning Policy Framework] Golden Rules and the commonly failed housing delivery tests give a virtually free pass for unplanned developments on Green Belt. Oh, and the Government want an additional 12,000 homes built on Green Belt in our district…”
He said he was surprised that a statement from Thames Water about their inability to process additional sewage in the area was rejected as a planning condition as being too general and outside the control of the applicant.
“I therefore urge this committee to either refuse this application for outline permission or to defer any decision until a condition can be imposed requiring evidence that sufficient sewage treatment capacity is physically operational before first occupation of any home on this site, as Thames Water itself has recommended.”
Despite suggestions of an additional 55 vehicle movements in the morning peak rush hour, Herts Highways did not raise any concerns.
But Cllr David Heritage not only pointed out the lack of sustainability in the development, but his own personal experiences of the traffic issues: “The only shop in the village is now closed, the only shop where you could get a loaf of bread, a newspaper or even a pint of milk.
“To go out from this site or indeed anywhere else in Sandridge, you either have to get the car out and go a few miles to another development… I know the area very well and to try and drive down there at school time or at work time is an absolute nightmare.”
Cllr Dason Canning said because this was the first grey belt site to be tested since the adoption of the new Local Plan, it was appropriate for it to be taken to appeal to decide whether it was appropriate.
He was told by officers that while the Local Plan delivers a five year housing land supply, it failed in terms of the housing delivery test, which meant it would be difficult to defend at appeal.
Cllr Jamie Day said he had been involved in shaping the current Local Plan over the past six years, and to be told now that it doesn’t protect against speculative development left him uncertain as to where the council goes with this.
The scheme was passed with five votes in favour, one against and three absentions.
Conservative group leader Cllr Matt Cowley said afterwards: “Despite the Lib Dem rhetoric on this, the council has admitted that it won’t be able to protect our district from speculative development until autumn 2027 at the earliest. That’s why our Conservative team urged the Lib Dems not to go down this route when we were handed down new housing targets, but to take a step back, deliver a new Local Plan that was fit for the future, and give us protection over the long term.
“What the Lib Dems have done instead is duck the hard choices and pass a Local Plan now that brings little protection; and then immediately begin work on a costly second Local Plan. More time and money wasted. Little benefit for our residents.”
Labour leader Cllr Mike Hobday added: “Regrettably, St Albans council’s massive historic under-provision of housing means our communities will remain at the mercy of speculative developers for several years to come. We score a dismal 46 per cent on the Government’s Housing Delivery Test – compared to nearby Broxbourne, which scores 110 per cent.
“Decades of operating under an outdated 1994 Local Plan left our district without a deliverable pipeline of allocated land. Local families and young people urgently need affordable homes, and Government policy aims to remedy this. But the failure to allocate housing sites in good time, means that the council lost the ability to protect our green spaces and determine where and how building happens.
“Despite its flaws, the new Local Plan begins to turn the tide. But because the Housing Delivery Test measures actual physical completions over a three-year period, reaching the 75 per cent threshold to regain full local control will take time. Until then, our villages and towns remain deeply vulnerable to speculative, profit-driven planning applications.”
Campaign group Save Our Sandridge told the St Albans Times: “Save Our Sandridge is furious at the way this decision was reached. It felt profoundly unjust.
“Councillors raised serious concerns about sewage capacity, sustainability, highways, the Neighbourhood Plan and the wisdom of approving speculative development on an unallocated Green Belt site. In our view, too many of those questions were never satisfactorily answered.
“Instead, there was an overwhelming sense that members’ hands were tied and that refusing the application would expose the council to an appeal and financial risk. But an appeal does not automatically mean the council pays the developer’s costs. If there were sound, defensible planning reasons for refusal, the council was entitled to refuse and defend that decision.
“The eventual vote – five in favour, one against and three abstentions – hardly suggests a committee comfortable with what it was doing.
“That makes the timing particularly galling. Council leader Paul de Kort said the new Local Plan was needed ‘to help protect us from speculative planning applications by developers’. Shottfield was not allocated in that Plan. Yet just three weeks after its adoption, permission has been given for 84 homes on this Green Belt site.
“Grey belt was repeatedly used to justify the decision, but grey belt is not automatic permission. The tests still have to be met – including whether this is genuinely a sustainable location. We remain completely unconvinced that they were.
“We are equally concerned by the reliance on St Albans’ 46 per cent Housing Delivery Test result. That figure measures housing delivery only up to March 2025. It contains nothing about homes completed during 2025/26, and Government rules allow an HDT result to be recalculated after adoption of a new housing requirement.
“SADC had just adopted its new Local Plan, yet as we understand it had not requested that recalculation. If 46 per cent was so fundamental to allowing speculative development on this Green Belt site, why wasn’t the current position established first?
“Then there is Thames Water’s warning that the existing sewage treatment works cannot accommodate the development without further measures. Councillors themselves challenged the condition put forward on the night.
“For SOS, the most disturbing part was the decision-making process itself. Serious questions were raised, but too often they were deflected rather than answered. Members appeared to be repeatedly steered towards approval.
“Significant changes were introduced on the night, including to the sewage condition, yet the committee was still expected to make an immediate decision. It left us with the deeply uncomfortable impression that the purpose of the discussion had become finding a way to approve the application, rather than independently testing whether it should be approved at all.
“People are angry – and so are we. SOS is urgently reviewing what happened and taking advice on the options now available. We do not regard this matter as closed.”
Add your support to SOS’ fight here: https://www.saveoursandridge.uk/
