This 3.4 mile circular walk takes in some of the rolling open countryside and woodland in the middle of the county.  The walk is centred on rural Symondshyde for which the submitted Welwyn Hatfield District Local Plan proposes a new settlement of 1130 homes.  The local campaign group Save Symondshyde and CPRE Herts continue to campaign against this damaging proposal, which would remove a swathe of rural countryside from the Green Belt.  The walk starts and finishes in Coleman Green, southeast of Wheathampstead.

Our October walk is at Bygrave Common in North Hertfordshire, to the northeast of Baldock.  The walk is easily accessible by public transport as it starts and finishes at Baldock railway station.  Bygrave Common is an area of the Green Belt for which the submitted North Hertfordshire Local Plan proposes 2,800 new homes along with a retail centre, school, doctors surgery and other infrastructure.  If developed, it would destroy the landscape and its wildlife habitats, remove high grade agricultural land from production, cause coalescence of Lower Bygrave with Baldock, and nearly double the physical footprint of Baldock.