29 Jun 2023
Has St Albans district council jumped the gun when it comes to building on our precious Green Belt?
Campaign groups across the district watched with baited breath as Monday’s meeting of the SADC planning, policy and climate committee identified preferred sites for the building of new homes in the period up to 2041.
These included major sites in the Green Belt which could be lost forever to development.
But although existing government targets call for approximately 15,000 homes to be built over the next 17 years, this figure could be drastically reduced by changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, something campaigners feel SADC should wait to hear before ploughing ahead with a draft Local Plan.
St Albans MP Daisy Cooper (pictured above) has been pushing the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to give local authorities developing a draft Local Plan the option to exclude sites submitted by landowners, developers, agents and site promoters which are located on Green Belt.
Unfortunately any final policy changes will only be confirmed once the National Planning Policy Framework is updated, and housing targets have yet to be amended.
Daisy said: “It’s hugely frustrating that the government continue to drag their heels on reviewing out-of-date and out-of-touch housing targets, that don’t deliver the affordable homes we need but do destroy the Green Belt forever.
“Given all the government’s hype about possible changes, many people understandably think that the housing targets have already been dropped but I’ve forced the government to confirm – on the parliamentary record – that this simply is not the case.
“Until the government turn their talk into action, our local councils have no option but to plough ahead to produce a Local Plan on this basis.”
Her sentiments are echoed by Cllr Simon Grover, leader of the Greens and Independents group on SADC: “The government needs to get a move on and provide the up-to-date housing requirement figures that we know are coming.
“Without those, we’re having to make plans to build thousands more houses than we should have to.
“In the meantime, the timetable the council has imposed on itself is surprisingly tight, with just two days between the planning committee due to agree the shape of the Plan in July and the Plan then going to public consultation. Let’s hope the committee don’t find anything they want to change.”
Campaigners have reacted to the outcome of the meeting along similar lines.
Keep Chiswell Green said they were delighted to see the active questioning by many of the elected committee councillors with regard to the Local Plan process, and commended Cllrs Mitchell, Galvin and Teresa Heritage for persistently standing up for their ward residents.
A spokesperson for the group offered the St Albans Times a detailed analysis of the meeting: “However, it is clear from the councillors’ questioning that their concerns mirror our own, in particular the council’s insistence on using the Government’s Standard Methodology for calculating future housing need.
“This methodology has been the subject of much debate in recent months, with the Government acknowledging that the population projection numbers that result from this calculation are out of date.
“In fact, for St Albans district, the Standard Methodology produces a figure that is nearly four times higher than using more up-to-date population projection figures.
“This is of paramount importance to St Albans as it means that significant amounts of Green Belt land would have to be used in order to satisfy building at this level.
“This is a ridiculous situation to be in – building more homes than we need and destroying our Green Belt in the process. SADC says that climate change and sustainability are their priority, but building on the Green Belt at levels such as these is the complete antithesis of protecting our environment.
“The council asserts that doing this will bring house prices down, but this is a very myopic view: house prices are only partly influenced by the supply, and house prices in St Albans will remain high due to all the other factors that influence house prices in this area – namely ease of rail travel into London, good schools, good access to the national road networks, the ‘small town feel”, its historic past, proximity to nature and green spaces etc. “The council acknowledges that the Government is reviewing the use of the Standard Methodology and may improve protections for the Green Belt, but says it is obliged to continue with the Standard Methodology until any changes have been formalised by the Government. “However, what is critical for local residents to understand is that, even under current National Planning Policy Guidance, the council is entitled to request an exemption from the Standard Methodology, with our location in the Metropolitan Green Belt and the limits on available land as exceptional circumstances.
“In addition to the council’s refusal to consider any other option than destroying hundreds of acres of our Green Belt, Keep Chiswell Green has major concerns about the opportunity for our elected councillors to influence the content of the draft Local Plan, about the timing of the public consultation, and that there is a lack of in-depth assessment that has been done on the sites suggested for inclusion in the Plan.
“The Green Belt Review recently concluded by Arup is the only assessment of the sites that have been put forward that has been made available to councillors and to the public. While an officer from the council’s spatial planning team assured councillors that further assessments had been or were to be carried out, Keep Chiswell Green shares the concerns voiced by councillors during the meeting at the lack of availability of assessments for each specific site with regard to transport, sustainability, water, schooling, and most particularly, in combination with other sites which makes it impossible to sensibly assess the suitability of any site for development.
“As an example, sites have been put forward in St Stephen Ward which would see over 1,000 additional vehicles from 600 new dwellings exiting onto or within metres of the Noke roundabout. It is critical that sites should be considered in combination with others in the area, not just in isolation.
“Overall, Keep Chiswell Green has major concerns that the council’s officers, with the support of the leader of the council, are riding roughshod over our elected councillors and over the views of the general public to produce a local plan that satisfies their own objective of maintaining control over plan-making in the district. Given their failure to produce a valid Local Plan since 1994, it may be to our advantage for their powers to be given to someone else.”
Gee Smedley on behalf of Team CLASH (Campaigning Locals Against Sewell Housing), which is fighting the North St Albans scheme, said: “The meeting has been dubbed ‘The Chris & Chris Show’. Cllr Chris White seemed to revel in what he felt was a well delivered draft Local Plan, until Cllr Mitchell of Redbourn (Independent), Cllr Galvin of Harpenden West (LDs), Cllr Heritage of Harpenden South (Cons) and Cllr Canning of Harpenden East (LDs) all broke ranks.
“We wholly agree with these councillors that the process, timetable and approach offers no scope for the necessary level of scrutiny at the committee stage and may thus prejudice any public consultation hastily planned for this summer.
“Planning officer Chris Briggs had not bought in front of the committee the necessary supporting documentation on traffic assessment by HCC, services and infrastructure, flooding assessments or ecological assessments in order to fully assess the proposals at each of the broad locations.
“Instead it seems as though SADC has preferred to work with landowners who are already proactively promoting those sites for development and heaping immense pressure and costs on the planning department and committee by taking every site refused to appeal in the hope that there will be another “chink out of the armour” as happened at Bullens Green Lane and then at Harpenden Road in 2021.
“It seems like Cllr White continues to parade the myth that the letter to him by the Secretary of State for Housing and Levelling Up gives SADC no option expect to continue to plan for housing using a standard methodology that is universally considered by most other parties to be advisory only. He doesn’t seem to believe us that this is not the correct interpretation. He doesn’t seem to believe lawyers who state that under Planning Policy Guidance, the standard method of housing forecasts advisory only.
“He doesn’t seem to want to listen to the latest statements by the Secretary of State on December 5 and again in the NPPF Consultation in March 2023, which are categoric and state, where there are legal protections in place on land such a Green Belt (holding strategic regional importance), then there is no requirement to deliver housing on these sites to meet the housing numbers by any calculation method.
“We are also dumbfounded at the discovery that the green spaces specified under the conditions to the Park Street Strategic Rail Freight Terminal is the land (pictured above) they are mainly referring to when quoting that the Local Plan will deliver parks the equivalent of 10 times Verulamium Park. We feel this is evidence of further green washing.
“Councillors and residents in the area now have advice which will likely take them to a Judicial Review, aimed at quashing the SRFI proposal.
“So rather than put a well considered pause on the plan, like other councils are doing with Government agreement, it feels that Chris White and Chris Briggs are so entrenched and inflexible in their proposals.
We believe that Chris White has failed in his stated ambition to “stand up for the Green Belt” (made in January 2023 at the LPAG meeting) and not taken the opportunities available to him to guide a local plan on a more sound basis. Rather he seems to press ahead, aiming for a “re-write” if housing figures change and possibly hope that no one will notice when develops use their “broad-location” status to try and gain green lights for Green Belt destruction.
“It seems to us that not only is Chris White at odds with Daisy Cooper MP on Green Belt strategy, but also by a strong core of Lib Dem councillors.
“We will be pushing for the complete withdrawal of this draft Local Plan. The committee was advised that if the Local Plan does not continue to progress then there is a risk that central Government will step in. To be frank, right now that looks like a better option than continuing on this path with Chris and Chris leading us in what we feel is the wrong direction.
“But in reality, the Government will a allow a pause without direct intervention as it has done in at least 10 other districts with large amounts of Green Belt all around the Home Counties. Empty threats and empty promises. The Chris & Chris Show must be cancelled.”
Council leader Cllr Chris White explained why the Local Plan was still not set in stone, and how housing targets could fluctuate: “The approval of the consultation document is in two stages. In June, councillors have looked at potential sites and in July, we will look at the policy chapters and at the outcomes from the June meeting just held.
“While the Government has talked about reducing housing numbers, it’s abundantly clear that they have not actually done anything. This means we are stuck with the old figures, which require 888 new homes a year, instead of the much smaller numbers that would be needed if the Government were to use up to date figures. This situation may yet change but until it does it is not safe to assume that it will.
“There are a large number of sites, including in particular ‘brownfield’ sites, various significant sites east of Hemel Hempstead and sites on the edge of settlements. At the moment that means some loss of greenbelt until the Government changes its requirements.
“Many of the sites are obviously sensible; others are more problematic and councillors raised a number of queries which have to be answered next month.”
