Our full representation – St Albans City & District Draft Local Plan

We have now completed our detailed analysis of the St Albans City & District Draft Local Plan 2041. The public consultation on the Plan is currently underway with a closing date of Monday, 25th September. It’s vitally important that as many local people respond as possible. We hope our submission will be helpful in this regard but we urge everyone to frame your response using your own words.

We have many significant concerns about the Draft Plan. The Plan over-emphasises traditional economic growth at the expense of nature, biodiversity and the environment.

There is insufficient protection of the Green Belt, with the Council instead proposing to allocate 792 hectares of Green Belt land for residential and commercial development.

Although more housing for local people is undoubtedly needed, we believe the Council has underestimated the opportunity for regenerating and recycling previously developed land. Taking full advantage of such ‘brownfield’ redevelopment opportunities would help save and protect the countryside on your doorstep.

You can read the details of all our concerns in our full analysis and submission. The document is organised sequentially by the chapters in the draft Plan document.

What you can do

We hope that all local people and communities throughout the District will respond to the consultation and have your say about the proposals. It’s imperative that the Council understands local residents’ concerns, so each individual response is important, and the more responses the better.

The consultation documents can be viewed at https://www.stalbans.gov.uk/new-local-plan

In addition…

We are CPRE Hertfordshire, the countryside charity. We work on behalf of everyone across Hertfordshire to protect and promote the beautiful countryside, for now and for the future. Our charity relies entirely on memberships and fundraising. Please help the countryside and become a member today – it’s easy and quick to join online. Or make a recurring or one-off donation – any amount is most welcomed. We appreciate your support.