Minutes:
“I bring before you tonight the result of a long and arduous process in formulating our Local Plan for the second time.
As Members and Officers know the first submission made to the inspector, while not being found unsound, was considered by him to have insufficient numbers to meet the objective assessment of need. That OAN was for between 12,600 and 13,430 houses, that is up to 707 houses per annum, whilst the submission was for 12,000 houses.
Subsequently the inspector has requested that we find the sites for 16,000 houses that is 800 per annum.
We carried out a call for new sites which produced a further 144 new and resubmitted sites and then consulted on those results. We received around 10,000 comments, the vast majority of which were objections to building on these sites.
Over the past weeks and months Officers together with Councillors have considered how to proceed, culminating in the proposals put before the Cabinet Planning and Parking Panel last night.
We have tried to consider the needs and wishes of our people together with the aspirations of local land-owners and developers and this has not been easy. We appreciate all points of view and have sought to produce a plan which causes the least harm to the green belt whilst maximising possible development areas. This is especially difficult in a Borough which is 80% green belt and with two major conurbations in Welwyn Garden City and Hatfield.
The Cabinet Panel meeting last night was the second Cabinet Panel meeting to discuss the plan, the first being held last week. The two meetings totalled several hours of debate with sites being discussed and some sites removed.
The accepted proposal was to recommend a total of just over 14,000 houses in locations around the Borough, avoiding high harm sites and any new sites with a harmfulness greater than moderate.
This was passed by the Panel with five votes in favour, three against and three abstentions.
No other plan was proposed, seconded and voted upon.
This spatial strategy agreed by Members last night has not been subject to sustainability appraisal and will need to be before Members make a final decision. The sites have however all been appraised apart from PB1.
The numbers of houses recommended are nearly 2000 fewer that the inspector has suggested but it is considered that this is the maximum number that can be accommodated without significant harm to the green belt or harmful coalescence of rural villages.
Some may consider these numbers still too high but we live in an evolving Country and most of the housing in the Borough has been the result of significant development, certainly from 1920 when this Garden City was started but also in the 1930s, 1950s and post 1960. Indeed many of the villages within the green belt or excluded were speculatively developed at that time as can be seen by driving around the Borough.
Landowners and developers will say that the numbers are too few, especially if their sites are excluded and that is quite understandable as they have a financial interest to consider.
However the numbers and sites chosen now are what are judged to be the best solution for the requirement.
If these numbers are rejected by the inspector and the plan is taken out of our hands it will not be for want of hard work or application by the Officers and I wish to pay special tribute to Sue Tiley and Colin Haigh and their teams who have patiently worked through the numbers, the sites and the comments over very many years and have also had to fend off the brickbats from Councillors.
This plan will require the use of some of the green belt but we consider that the very special circumstances of the need for new housing outweigh the harm caused as long as the amount of green belt required remains small. Any further encroachment into the green belt is considered unacceptable and the need, and therefore suggested very special circumstances, would not outweigh the serious harm caused. The plan now sets out the proposed sites and Colin will now present the details.”