10 Mar 2026
Is enough being done to provide the infrastructure to support the thousands of homes being built across the district?
That’s the question being asked by Harpenden MP Victoria Collins in the wake of the ongoing issue over excessive housing developments surrounding the village of Redbourn.
The East Hemel development – part of the Hemel Garden Communities proposal – will see 4,000 homes on 975 acres east of Hemel, south of the B487 Hemel Hempstead Road (Redbourn Road) and north of the A4147 St Albans Road.
And approximately 1,000 homes are planned for a 104-acre open arable site on the northeast edge of the village, between Dunstable Road, Harpenden Lane and the Redbourn bypass. This development is not in the SADC Local Plan but is claiming grey belt status.
Speaking in Parliament, Victoria detailed the crisis facing Harpenden, Redbourn and surrounding villages – where housing targets have nearly doubled under Labour’s new methodology, yet transport infrastructure remains desperately inadequate.
She called on the Government to adopt an infrastructure-first approach to planning, warning that poorly-defined policies are handing developers a wide-open door to bypass Local Plans while communities are left without the infrastructure they desperately need.
Speaking afterwards, she said local residents were not NIMBYs and understood the need for housing: “What they cannot understand is a planning system that hands power to developers and takes it away from communities – that doubles housing targets without doubling infrastructure.
“Trains are cancelled daily, buses stop at 2pm in some villages, roads built for older market towns are now gridlocked, and the average house price in Harpenden is around £900,000. How can we tell local people they’re sacrificing Green Belt so their children can afford to buy, when so-called ‘affordable’ homes at 80 per cent of market value can still cost over half a million pounds?
“I’ve heard directly from constituents like Hannah, a sixth-former from Harpenden, who says she’s never considered living here in the future because it would be far too expensive – and who relies on public transport for her independence, transport that is being stripped away. Or Catherine from Redbourn, who rightly says villages should not be measured the same way as towns when it comes to grey belt – especially when they have rare chalk streams and wildlife you don’t find anywhere else in Europe.
“Communities like ours should not have to choose between housing and infrastructure. They need both, planned together, from the start. It’s the least our communities deserve.”
Meanwhile, in neighbouring St Albans, a developer has applied to omit provision for affordable housing in lieu of a payment of £250,000. The scheme for The Old Electricity Works in Campfield Road was approved subject to five units for affordable rent and two for shared ownership, but developer James Taylor Homes (Verulamium) Ltd now wants to remove that obligation in exchange for financial renumeration.
St Albans MP Daisy Cooper said: “I’m unable to comment on the specifics of live planning applications but it’s always concerning to hear suggestions that any developer might be trying to wriggle out of their obligations to provide social housing or contribute to essential infrastructure.
“Essentially, local planning authorities have to judge each application against the national rules and laws they’re given, not the ones we wish we had.
“For far too long Conservative and Labour Governments have failed to close loopholes that allow big developers to secure permission, then change the goalposts retrospectively.
“The Government’s concept of grey belt continues to jeopardise protections for our precious Green Belt land, whilst failing to deliver the social homes we desperately need to end the scandal of temporary housing, homelessness and years-long waiting lists. Liberal Democrats have consistently argued for a community-led, infrastructure-first planning framework, putting communities and their needs first. Sadly, the Government is just refusing to listen.”
