The White Paper is open for consultation until October. However, as it stands at the moment it is a proposal to remove a huge amount of discretion away from Local Planning Authorities and replace this by obligations and policies handed down from government. Councillors were shocked by the large amount of centralisation that will take place.
The major part of the briefing was taken up with an outline of the new Dacorum Local Plan. The plan covers not only , but also , , , , , ‘, and .
The next steps in the development of the Local Plan are:
The plan will provide for a 15 year supply of housing land and as soon as the plan is adopted by the Council, any land in Green Belt will be removed from the Green Belt and all the housing land will immediately be made available for development.
There was a large amount of comment and questions from councillors throughout the virtual meeting and from across the Borough, but with proportionately greater interest arising from Tring and Berkhamsted.
Councillors were instructed that the contents of the plan are confidential and must not be divulged to the public at present. (sorry)
However I think it’s fair to say the plan it will make a heroic contribution to the Johnson government’s “Build, Build, Build!” agenda.