Parties clash over Three Rivers green belt housebuilding

Conservative and Liberal Democrat councillors in Three Rivers traded blows on the green belt earlier this week at a meeting devoted to the long-running Local Plan saga. Work on the Local Plan - the blueprint for how and where new housing in Three Rivers will go - has been ongoing since 2017, and the lack of an up-to-date plan means it is easier for housebuilders to build in the district.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Liberal Democrat council leader Cllr Stephen Giles-Medhurst (Leavesden) said a proposal brought forward by the Conservatives was “delusional”, while Conservative opposition leader Cllr Oliver Cooper (Chorleywood North and Sarratt) accused Cllr Giles-Medhurst of “incompetence”.

The Conservatives argued that speeding up the Local Plan process and submitting it to the national planning inspector for approval by 12 March is the best way to avoid the new government-set housing target of 832 per year.

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However, the Liberal Democrats, who run the council as a minority administration, insisted it was not possible to submit a draft by that date and said that arguing for an exemption to rules about releasing green belt land for development was the best way forward.

The Liberal Democrat plan - which had already been agreed last month - was supported by a majority of councillors, while the Conservative proposal was voted down. It will see a draft Local Plan completed by November 2025.

In contrast, the Conservatives wanted to resurrect a ‘lower growth’ Local Plan that was being worked on earlier in 2024, and would have seen 4,850 homes built in Three Rivers by 2041 if approved - well below the previous government target of 11,500, and even further below the new target. Applications submitted to the planning inspectorate by 12 March will be assessed under the government’s previous planning policy.

The ‘low growth’ plan was halted in October after Cllr Giles-Medhurst said “the planning inspectorate would outright reject our plan as it stands”. He said the postponement was needed to “get more evidence to back up our claims of the harmful effect of releasing large acres of green belt”.

However, the government’s updated reforms announced last month included changes that will make it more difficult for councils to argue that they should be exempt from reviewing their green belt boundaries. The plan had been to complete work on the ‘low growth’ option by February 2025 - but Cllr Giles-Medhurst said on Tuesday it would not be possible to complete it in time.

He said the option was no longer suitable as the number of homes it included had fallen from 4,850 to 4,000 “because a number of sites have either come out or their numbers have been reduced … as a result of that, they need new sustainability assessments, they need new paperwork to deal with the drops in those numbers”.

“The failure to submit a complete plan would mean automatically the plan would be found unsound the first day of examination.

“Officers have advised me … that the only option of getting lower than the government’s target is to still use this get out clause [and argue for exceptional circumstances around the green belt].

“Officers professionally believe that is the only option we have. This is the way of protecting our district; this is the way of protecting our green belt; it’s clearly a chance we have to take.”

Cllr Giles-Medhurst insisted that exceptional circumstances that could prevent the council from releasing green belt land exist. However, Cllr Cooper said that changes to government planning policy meant it would be “disastrous” not to submit a plan by the March deadline.

He said the council had previously assumed it would only have until 12 January to submit a Plan under the old policy. But the new deadline, he said, meant the council could “do the [legally required] Regulation 19 consultation … get the extra work done, and get it submitted to the planning inspector to protect our green belt”.

He added it meant the council would then not be subject to the government’s new housing targets for five years during which time “a lot can change”.

“All through this process, we’ve been told February or March was possible. Years and years of work should not be thrown away just to end up having to throw ourselves at the mercy of [housing secretary] Angela Rayner’s 14,977 homes.”

Members of other parties backed the Liberal Democrat administration at Tuesday’s meeting. Labour group leader Cllr Stephen Cox (South Oxhey) said the ‘low growth’ option had offered “false comfort”, and added that officers had at the time described it as a “high risk” option that was “very unlikely to be successful at examination”.

He said the Conservative plan was “superficially attractive but in truth and reality a fundamentally flawed approach”.

“We all want to protect the green belt, but the Conservatives don’t have the magic wand or silver bullet that will deliver it,” Cllr Cox said.

Green group leader Cllr Chris Mitchell (Dickinsons) said he shared concerns “about the position we’re in”. But he added that he thought “the best way forward is to proceed as agreed in December” and compared the Conservative proposal to “ramming the Titanic into the iceberg”.