Our initial review – South West Herts Joint Strategic Plan

We have completed our initial review of the proposed South West Hertfordshire Joint Strategic Plan. We believe the Plan is deeply flawed, and we encourage everyone to submit their own individual response before the 4th November 2022 closing date for comments.

The public consultation on the South West Hertfordshire Joint Strategic Plan, entitled ‘South West Hertfordshire 2050 – Realising Our Potential’ is happening right now. Details on how to respond are included at the bottom of this page.

Which areas are covered by this Joint Plan?

The local authorities in Dacorum Borough, Hertsmere Borough, St Albans City & District, Three Rivers District, and Watford Borough are working together to create this Joint Plan. The Plan will directly affect everyone in these five local authority areas.

Once finalised, the Joint Plan will be a formal, statutory document. It will carry significant weight in all key planning decisions in the five local authority areas.  Each district or borough’s own Local Plans and policies will be subordinate to this Joint Plan.

So it is very important that as many local people as possible respond to this consultation. Please read on for guidance on how to do this.

An over-emphasis on growth

Although the Joint Plan is generalised, it assumes that there should be a very high level of growth in the local area over the next 30 years. We believe this is entirely inappropriate, and the title ‘Realising our Potential’ is frankly ridiculous for a well-developed and mature local economy like ours in Hertfordshire. It is also completely contrary to the government’s levelling up strategy to redirect growth away from over-heated areas like Hertfordshire: ONS data shows that the population of these five districts has increased by 16% since 2001, from 523,834 to 607,200. This is a greater percentage increase than that of the UK as a whole.

We are not alone in our concerns about growth at the expense of nature, the countryside and the environment. In a poll commissioned by The Economist and conducted by Ipsos on 12-13 September 2022, “by 43% to 29%, respondents think more focus should be placed on environmental protection, even if that harms economic growth. By a margin of 57% to 24%, respondents favour giving priority to the views of local residents and protecting the countryside, even if that results in less new housing.”

The Joint Plan consultation asks respondents to make seemingly innocuous choices about where growth should be located, but omits many of the implications of what that will actually mean for local residents and for the countryside. How much more of the precious Green Belt and the wider countryside are we prepared to lose under an ocean of concrete?

Our initial review

Our initial review of the Joint Plan is available for reference. It can be utilised as a guide in preparing your own consultation response. We believe there is

• unwarranted over-emphasis on growth
• insufficient focus on designated protected land including the Green Belt and the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
• insufficient focus on brownfield redevelopment
• silence on farming and agriculture
• insufficient focus on water resources including the need to address the high number of sewerage overflows and the need to protect our rare chalk streams
• inadequate approach to low carbon transport
• over-emphasis on the built environment rather than the natural environment, including the need for more support of existing and new community woodlands, local green spaces and public rights of way
• warm buzzwords about climate change that carry little credibility.

What you can do – how to respond

Please respond to the consultation and encourage friends and neighbours to respond as well. The more people who respond, the better. The deadline for responses is 5 PM on Friday, 4 November 2022.

The South West Hertfordshire Joint Strategic Plan consultation documents and response form are available at https://www.swhertsplan.com/consultation

There are three ways everyone can submit a response, by email, by post, or by using the online portal.

We recommend downloading the consultation questionnaire as a Microsoft Word document, which will then allow you to make as many free-form comments as you wish.

You can then email your response to: haveyoursay@swhertsplan.com

Or if you prefer to post your response, the address is: South West Herts JSP, c/o Dacorum Borough Council, The Forum, Marlowes, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire HP1 1DN

About us

CPRE Hertfordshire members, along with the 20,000 CPRE members across the whole of England, are a powerful voice standing up for the countryside.  We believe it is now more important than ever to protect the beautiful Hertfordshire countryside, and make sure it is still here for everyone in the future. Please become a CPRE member today – it’s quick and easy to join online.