Countryside Charity Warns of Excessive Development in Green Belt

CPRE Hertfordshire warns that new government proposals to reform the planning system will lead to excessively high housebuilding targets that will destroy the countryside and green spaces in Hertfordshire on an unprecedented scale.

One of the major new proposals from the Government’s proposed reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework is a new algorithm for calculating housing need.

Under this proposed new standard method, eight out of Hertfordshire’s ten local planning authorities would see significantly higher housing need figures, with St Albans District, Dacorum and Hertsmere Boroughs having the greatest increase.

Across all of Hertfordshire, the new algorithm would result in an increase in housing need of 1,499 dwellings per year, or 19% higher than under the old standard method. By comparison, across the whole of the London authority area, according to the new algorithm housing need would decrease by 18%.

And that’s not all. The algorithm would not only lead to higher housebuilding targets, it would mean housing completions, i.e. what actually gets built, would have to more than double across Hertfordshire: from the most recent three-year average of 4,295 dwellings per year to 9,586 dwellings per year, an increase of 123%.

Together with other proposed changes that would weaken Green Belt protections, the government seems to believe that requiring local authorities to set higher housebuilding targets will result in more houses being completed by developers and this will drive house prices down.

But CPRE Hertfordshire believes it is far more likely that developers will see these changes as a green light to proceed with big new speculative development proposals for lots of market-based or ‘executive homes’ in inappropriate locations in the countryside such as prime agricultural land and highly-valued local landscapes.

Abby Coften, Chief Executive of CPRE Hertfordshire, says: ‘These new housebuilding figures are hugely alarming, with serious implications for Hertfordshire’s Green Belt and countryside. We will be responding to the new Government’s proposals and we urge the general public to have their say too. Once the countryside is lost, it is lost forever. We need to take action now before it is too late.’

CPRE Hertfordshire will shortly be publishing guidance on how to have your say on the government’s new planning proposals before the consultation deadline of 24 September. It is vital that local residents speak out for the preservation of the Green Belt and communicate their concerns to local Councillors and MPs before the proposed changes to the planning system become final.

Sign up to CPRE Hertfordshire’s e-newsletter on the website to be sent further information on how to submit your concerns on the new planning proposals: www.cpreherts.org.uk