12 Feb 2026
After months of speculation, long-awaited details on the controversial Hemel Garden Communities project are starting to emerge, while a crowdfunding campaign has been launched to protect Redbourn village from overdevelopment.
HGC is a strategic cross-boundary project, approximately half within St Albans City and District and half within Dacorum Borough, which will deliver approximately 11,000 homes and 10,000 jobs up to 2050.
Of this project, the East Hemel development 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.
The East Hemel site is allocated for development in SADC’s draft Local Plan, which will set the planning policy for how areas like this should be designed and developed.
HGC, SADC and Dacorum are now inviting local residents, businesses, and developers to have their say on two new Draft Supplementary Planning Documents (SPDs) that will help shape the future housing, neighbourhoods and development within the Hemel Garden Communities Programme Area.
Supplementary Planning Documents are technical documents which help to clarify, illustrate or provide detail on how Local Plan policies should be applied in practice and they will help to inform future development across the town.
The Draft Hemel Garden Communities Framework and Transformation SPD aims to ensure sites are developed in a joined-up way to achieve good quality housing, green spaces and features that reduce flood risk and respond to climate change, improve active travel, and provide new jobs.
This SPD will also offer strategic design code guidance for developers who will create the new homes and neighbourhoods within the Programme Area.
Residents are invited to a public face-to-face meeting on the SPDs at Redbourn Parish Centre on Thursday February 26 from 5-8pm, with the full consultation running until midnight on March 19.
Redbourn parish council chair Cllr David Mitchell said: “The Hemel Gardens Communities is such a huge development project and I have been waiting a long time to see how it would all be delivered and managed.
“To be honest, I am relieved we are finally getting some information; it feels long overdue.
“This project is going to impact on both Hemel and Redbourn in a way that will significantly change the area for ever. I don’t support the concept of HGC but if it is forced upon us, I want to see the evidence that it going to be done properly. We don’t want it to end up as a semi-abandoned expensive disaster like HS2.”
The parish council has published its own statement on the various schemes facing the village: “Redbourn is subject to various housing development proposals, some within the St Albans Local Plan and some outside of the St Albans Local Plan.
“St Albans Local Plan has been submitted to the Secretary of State for Independent Examination. Through a process of hearings, the Inspectors have examined documentation and spoken to stake holders of which Redbourn Parish Council were represented. The Inspectors are now considering all documentation, asking additional questions for further clarification before giving their conclusion on whether the Local Plan is ‘sound’.”
Nick Johnson from Redbourn Residents Group, a campaign fighting the over-development of the village, said: “This is another disingenuous and performative box-ticking ‘engagement’ exercise. We challenge them to publish the unvarnished results of any engagement survey and list any significant changes made as a result of feedback.
“Our experience of community feedback so far has been that it is requested and then ignored.”
Campaigners have highlighted some of the impact of the developments, including increased traffic congestion and housing just a few hundred yards from the Grade I-listed St Mary’s Church, which dates back to the 12th century.
Resident Nigel Sill said: “To allow building on the last two fields separating the new town of Hemel Hempstead from the old village of Redbourn is both lazy and short sighted. The founders of the Green Belt policy would turn in their graves if they know what was being done to their legacy just because it was easier!”
Meanwhile, Redbourn Residents Group has launched a GoFundMe campaign to pay for vital legal advice to fight the overdevelopment of the village.
As extensively covered by the St Albans Times, developers are bidding to add thousands of homes onto Green Belt land in the vicinity of Redbourn, not just as part of HGC.
Approximately 1,000 homes are also planned for a 104-acre open arable site on the northeast edge of the village, between Dunstable Road, Harpenden Lane and the Redbourn bypass.
The proposals by the Lawes Agricultural Trust (LAT) – a charitable trust which owns the estates at Rothamsted in Harpenden – would apparently include a new two-form entry primary school, a potential new care home, around 23 football pitches’ worth of open space, play areas and other enhancements around the River Ver chalk farm, and up to 50 per cent affordable housing.
But the development will see 42 hectares of Green Belt land reclassified as grey belt and the size of the village population increase from 2,200 to 3,200 houses.
Members of Redbourn Residents Group are aiming to launch a legal challenge to oppose both East Hemel and the LAT development. Nick Johnson explained: “Redbourn is at significant risk of overdevelopment with plans to add 5,000 houses, predominantly on Green Belt land around the village.
“Despite more than 2,000 people signing our petition to stop these developments, SADC are saying their hands are tied by national government rules.
“It is clear we will now need to mount a direct legal challenge in order to be taken seriously and protect our home.
“For that reason, we need to raise up to £100,000 to appoint key solicitors and planning experts to undertake a judicial review of opportunistic planning applications.
“Please donate generously if you can to support this cause, protect our Green Belt and stop the destruction of Redbourn as we know it.”
The campaign has already raised more than £6,000. You can donate here.
Funds raised will be used to support legal, planning, and professional action aimed at resisting inappropriate development affecting Redbourn, including but not limited to the appointment of solicitors, barristers, planning consultants, environmental experts, and associated disbursements.
