BLOG: Three Rivers cannot take 13,312 homes, emerging evidence suggests

By Cllr Stephen Giles-Medhurst OBE

In January, the council decided to delay submitting its new Local Plan to gather stronger evidence that Three Rivers was unlikely to be able to find enough sites to meet the government’s housing number of 13,312. New planning rules allowed Three Rivers to gather evidence to show that releasing too much of its green belt would “fundamentally undermined its purpose”.

Initial findings from our specialist advisors have found that most of our green belt, particularly around Abbots Langley and between Abbots and Hemel Hempstead as well as between Rickmansworth and Chorleywood and to the east of Carpenders Park, would do just that and undermine the reason we have green belt. Whilst it does not 100% rule out all development, it does mean very large-scale developments that could see merging of community is a nogoer in green belt terms.

We have made multiple calls for site owners of previously developed land (brownfield sites), but, so far, about 600 homes can be provided on such sites. We are not like some neighbouring authorities where they have dense urban areas. Three Rivers is mainly small urban areas, towns and villages.

This means the only way to meet the government’s high figure would be to take large areas out of the green belt. The council has agreed multiple times that it wants to protect as much of the green belt as possible. I am pleased this new expert report shows that we can make a strong case against doing so, especially in those areas.

We will have to release some smaller less harmful sites, and some areas now classed as grey belt as we do need some new housing for future generations, but it will be far less than the 13,312 homes the government said it wanted here.

Equally, I and others, have always said the high figure from successive governments was unsustainable for our area as we simply don’t have the infrastructure to support it. We want to protect our local communities by preventing the merging into large urban areas.

I am pleased it looks like our delay and the evidence we gathered so far is set to pay off. We still have some more work to finish on transport and sustainability of sites likely to be developed to make sure they work for all. However, I am confident we will have a new plan by early next year that we can put to the government. It will be a plan that has the right infrastructure and meets our future housing and economic needs while also protecting our precious green belt – and that commitment is cast iron.  We hope the government will agree with us.