01 Aug 2025
The Government has pulled the plug on a village’s blueprint for future development and growth, leaving unanswered questions about what it means for the future.
London Colney Parish Council started work on its Neighbourhood Plan in late 2019, supported by the nationwide community organisation Locality, and funded by central government.
Following wide consultation within the village, particularly on green spaces, a draft plan was produced in 2023.
This included a design code for new building in the village and an appendix detailing LCPC’s vision for rights of way around the village.
But with the rapid progression of the SADC Local Plan and then the significant changes in planning legislation being implemented by the new Labour Government further development was postponed until the wider landscape was clear.
Chair of LCPC, Cllr Tony Lillico said: “Given the increasing likelihood that the SADC Local Plan will be approved by planning inspectors we were in the process of restarting the plan. Unfortunately we were one of the first parish councils to find out that the Government has quietly withdrawn funding for Neighbourhood Plans, even where significant expenditure has already taken place.”
The matter was raised with St Albans MP Daisy Cooper, who asked in Parliament whether alternative funding would be made available to London Colney Parish Council for the completion of their Neighbourhood Plan given how far it had progressed.
Minister of State for Housing and Planning, Matthew Pennycook MP, responded: “Following the Spending Review, my Department announced that it is unable to commission new neighbourhood planning support services for 2025 onwards. Technical support which has already been awarded will continue to be provided but must be completed before the end of March 2026. London Colney Parish is not in receipt of such support.
“The Government remains of the view that Neighbourhood Plans can play an important role in the planning system. Communities can continue to prepare Neighbourhood Plans where they consider that doing so is in their best interests.
“Parish and town councils have access to their own resources which they can choose to use for neighbourhood planning if they wish.”
Cllr Lillico said: “Unfortunately the response from the Government was not helpful and showed a complete lack of understanding of the challenges that parish councils like London Colney have to deal with. This is particularly important for London Colney which will be sandwiched between a huge freight terminal and monstrous Bowmans Cross development that is likely to feature in the upcoming new Hertsmere Local Plan.
“We need to investigate the options further, but we need to find an alternative source of funding or put the plan on indefinite hold. London Colney is the poorest parish in the area so funding from our regular income is not an option.”
Daisy Cooper said: “One of the first things the Government did was to introduce even higher top-down housing targets and ramming through the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.
“The downside to this is there are very few protections in the bill for our rivers, for nature and for green spaces.
“Places like London Colney feel under siege because there’s no way to look at the cumulative impact of all the different planning applications that are going on around them.
“When somebody says, ‘it’s just a few hundred homes here, a few hundred homes there’ it doesn’t look like that big a problem, but when you look at the totality you have thousands of homes right around the village.
“Our housing targets also haven’t been reduced in recognition of us taking a huge piece of national infrastructure in the form of the rail freight terminal.
“So at the very least, local villagers should have the opportunity to have their voices heard, and given they’ve done so much work [on their Neighbourhood Plan] already, they should have the funding to finish it off.
“When you’ve made such significant progress it’s a waste of money otherwise.”
In the wake of the Minister’s response, she added: “The Minister’s reply just adds insult to injury. After the Government has massively increased the top-down housing targets which the district has to accommodate, now London Colney Parish residents, staff and councillors, have been stripped of the very resources that would give them a say in how that development should happen. When Parliament reconvenes in September, I’ll look for other ways to make the case.”
But Mike Hobday, Labour district councillor for London Colney, argued the parish council was in a position to fund the work itself if it decided to proceed: “I’m all in for more money coming into London Colney, but it’s pretty cheeky for London Colney Parish Council to claim poverty after it increased its council tax bill by 32 per cent last year! It’s hardly in a position to plead poverty!
“I’m very much in support of a village Neighbourhood Plan – though we may disagree strongly on where housing development should take place – I have strongly argued for different locations to the Shenley Lane/Napsbury Park Green Belt that St Albans council favours.
“Sadly the development of the plan seems to have stalled some years ago – there has been no public engagement for some time. Frankly, I thought that they had abandoned their work.”
