Three Rivers Local Plan consultation, our final submittal

We have now submitted our final response to the Three Rivers consultation survey on the Council’s “Preferred Local Plan – Lower Housing Growth Protecting More Green Belt Land”.

This new public consultation follows on from earlier consultations over the past five years. These resulted in huge numbers of local residents expressing their opposition to the massive amount of protected Green Belt land that would have been lost to development.

In response to this public outcry, the Council has had a rethink and is now proposing their new “Lower Housing Growth Option – Protecting More Green Belt Land”.

We are generally supportive of the Council’s new approach, and we agree strongly that the Council’s preferred “Low Growth and Green Belt Restraint” strategy is appropriate.

In particular, we are pleased that Three Rivers Council is taking account of policy constraints and local conditions in providing for housing need, particularly with regard to designated protected land such as the Green Belt and the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

• We agree with the Council’s proposed stance of not complying with the Government’s Standard Method calculation regarding the District’s housing need figure owing to Green Belt and the AONB.
• We fully support the Council’s approach in applying NPPF paragraph 11 and footnote 7 in assessing housing need against Green Belt policy constraints.

However, we do note that Three Rivers Council has not applied the policy test to the whole of the Green Belt in the District, which would be our preferred position, but has instead concentrated on where most harm would be caused.

In addition, we believe the Council may have underestimated the potential for new dwellings to be accommodated on previously developed (brownfield) land. We urge the Council to re-assess these opportunities for redevelopment, so as to protect even more of the Green Belt.

Download our final submittal to read more. You might also wish to refer to our earlier site analysis showing the impact on each community.

In addition…

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