16 Nov 2023
Councillors have rejected a petition by more than 500 residents to pause the Local Plan process and look again at housing need in a bid to save the Green Belt from development.
A meeting of the planning policy and climate committee on Tuesday night called for a halt to the Plan timetable until such time as the use of the Standard Methodology to determine housing need has been removed, as is likely to happen under government legislation.
Shirani St Ledger McCarthy, from campaign group Keep Chiswell Green, representing the District Green Belt Alliance, told the committee: “When the draft Local Plan documents were published in June this year, the residents of St Albans district were horrified to see that the essence of the proposal was to destroy nearly 2,000 acres of local Green Belt in order to build over 15,000 new dwellings. Within four days 590 signatures were received petitioning this committee to pause development of the Local Plan, to remove the use of the Standard Method for calculating the Plan’s housing targets, and to put forward a plan based on local need.”
She told councillors: “You were told that the Standard Method was compulsory, that the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill was unlikely to be passed, and increasing the number of dwellings in the district would bring the price of houses down, and that sacrificing the Green Belt was a necessary part of developing the district. You were told that not progressing the Local Plan according to the timetable would result in government intervention and that your Plan-making powers would be taken away from you.
“The Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill has received Royal Assent and is now law. A revised NPPF [National Planning Policy Framework] is due to be published imminently and is expected to include the statement: ‘Green Belt boundaries are not required to be reviewed and altered if this would be the only means of meeting the objectively assessed need for housing over the Plan period’.
“The Standard Method is expected to be reconfirmed as the advisory starting point that it has always been. We are not obliged to use the Standard Method for determining our housing target for the district, providing we justify why it is not appropriate for us.”
Shirani said the concept that building more houses will bring down the price of property was ludicrous: “Price is affected by many factors, including that developers advertise new builds outside the area in locations such as London, attracting additional residents, which actually underpins higher prices.
“An affordable housing quota of 40 per cent at any development over 10 units means that in excess of 60 per cent of the housing that would be built under this Plan would not meet the actual housing need in the district.”
In conclusion, she said: “We believe that the current draft Plan is unsound. The sites included in the Plan have been selected without the objectively assessed evidence based required for appropriate appraisals to be undertaken. Questioning from councillors on this committee prior to the launch of the Regulation 18 consultation supports the common sense recommendation in the Local Government Association’s Good Plan Making Guide, which states: ‘Evidence should inform what is in the Plan, rather than be collected retrospectively in an attempt to justify the Plan. The evidence base should include assessments of traffic and transport, healthcare, employment, schools, leisure, shops, infrastructure, not just a Green Belt review’.
“The Green Belt review used as evidence for the site selection is flawed, but these flaws have not been investigated, since there was no opportunity to do so before the Regulation 18 consultation was initiated.
“Instead, the process was hastily launched under the threat of government intervention. These threats appear to be contained in the correspondence from 2017 and ’18 with the then Secretary of State for Housing Sajid Javid. But the government did not intervene then, nor in the following six years, despite another failed Local Plan.
“We and many of the other parties who responded to the Local Plan consultation believe that this Local Plan will be found to be unsound at examination and once again another St Albans City and District Local Plan will be thrown out.
“We petition you now as our elected representatives to go back to the drawing board, pause the timetable of the Local Plan, remove the Standard Method, protect our Green Belt and valuable green spaces, determine local housing needs based on up-to-date population projections, and collect the full evidence base necessary to assess the proposed sites. We want a new Local Plan that we can all support as a new Regulation consultation, the right Plan for our district.”
Chair Cllr Chris White said the committee had objected to the Standard Method, but it remained in place and is deemed compulsory by planning inspectors.
He said they still awaited the changed NPPF guidance and cannot anticipate what will be in the new framework: “To withdraw the Plan now would be to anticipate that and be in breach of what the government’s wishes. We have been warned twice already, in writing, in public documents, let alone what we’re told in private, that we must not slow progress given that we have the oldest Plan in the country.
“Of course the reason why you need a Plan is to protect the Green Belt. That’s the fundamental reason beyond all else, and the longer we leave it every single day means that our fields are vulnerable.
“Property prices have never been a consideration and I don’t believe they were ever discussed in this forum and certainly not in any major way.
“It wasn’t just a Green Belt review as you can see if you read through the draft Local Plan, there is an awful lot more to it.”
Redbourn Independent Cllr David Mitchell said: “I don’t really understand how we are protecting the Green Belt when we have so many sites on Green Belt, and if we did delay our Local Plan probably nothing would happen in terms of any reprimand from the government.
“A lot of issues have emerged about the Green Belt sites and I personally think it makes sense to pause the Plan.”
Cllr White said they would like the figures to be amended, and there was still plenty of time for this to happen, with a new NPPF being the game-changer.
Harpenden South West Cllr Teresa Heritage said she was very concerned about the sites which had been chosen, with a lot of small sites where the density was very tight.
Cllr Jacqui Taylor (St Peter’s) said she had spoken to people around the district who were looking at the Local Plan in terms of what housing provision it may give for those with different or additional needs, as there was an acute shortage at the present time.
Cllr Paul de Kort (Harpenden North & Rural) said there were already 3,500 homes under consideration due to planning applications put in by developers, and asked what impact any delay could have in terms of these and other developments.
Council spatial planning manager Chris Briggs said he could not comment on existing applications, but stressed that the age of the Local Plan is a significant factor always raised in both applications and appeals.
Cllr White concluded that they would continue to keep these matters under review as they move towards the Regulation 19 consultation stage.
