Public Consultation – St Albans City & District Next Local Plan 2029

St Albans City and District is now – until 14 September – conducting a Scoping Consultation on their Next Local Plan 2029. This is not to be confused with their Draft Local Plan 2041 that has been in the works for several years and which the Council says it hopes to adopt soon.

The Government has put into place a new process and timetable for local planning authorities, and in accordance with that, this new Scoping Consultation is very generalised. This is where residents and stakeholders are invited to share their views on what the plan should contain, including the main challenges and opportunities facing the district over the coming years with respect to housing, infrastructure, nature and the environment, tackling climate change and other matters.

Note that no potential development sites or allocations are identified or proposed at this stage.

Dates for the Scoping Consultation are 3 August to 14 September.  For further information see the Council website at https://stalbans-consult.objective.co.uk/kpse/event/6FA87774-E9DF-45CA-B3B1-19BA0BEE2DBF

Later in August or early September we will publish our own response which may be used as guidance for your response, and we do encourage as many local people as possible to respond.

So why this consultation now?

So why is the Council starting this Next Local Plan 2029 process before the nearly-ready-to-adopt Draft Local Plan 2041 is in place? In short, because they have to. In March 2026 the Government’s new planning regulations came into force, requiring local authorities with adopted or emerging Local Plans that meet less than 80% of new, inflated, Government-set housing targets to start work on a new Local Plan that will meet those higher targets. This situation also applies to Dacorum Borough, which will soon be conducting its own new Scoping Consultation.

We deplore the Government’s new housing targets, which are arithmetically derived and then inflated further for areas like the Home Counties, taking no account of local conditions or population trends and demographics.

We continue to campaign against these arbitrary housing targets and the erosion of local democracy in determining local housing need.