Watch our new video – St Albans District Draft Local Plan

St Albans City & District Council is conducting a public consultation on its new Draft Local Plan out to 2041. If the Plan goes ahead, a massive 792 hectares (1,957 acres) of Green Belt land will be lost to development. It’s vital that as many local people respond to the consultation as possible.

To help local residents to develop their response, our planning specialists have completed an initial review and site analysis. We will publish our full submission well before the consultation closing date of 25th September, which can also be used to support your response.

Now, to help illustrate the impact of the Draft Local Plan, one of our CPRE Hertfordshire volunteers has compiled this video.

We believe the Draft Local Plan fails to protect the Green Belt, contrary to national planning policy and contrary to the approach of other Local Councils.

The St Albans District Draft Local Plan also fails to address climate change, underestimates the opportunities for the re-use and re-development of land, contains only a minimalistic approach to biodiversity issues affecting local habitats, and fails to address the severe water issues that we all hear about almost daily in the mainstream media.

What you can do

You can read more about each of our concerns in these areas in our initial review and our site analyses.

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 your comments are important.

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

And finally….

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 CPRE member today – it’s easy and quick to join online. Or make a recurring or one-off donation – any amount is most welcomed.