Notes from the Green Belt: what’s so very special about Colney Heath?
Do you remember our imaginary road-trip to Burley-in-Wharfedale in March, where I spent the whole journey chewing your ear off about the very special circumstances test for granting planning permission in the Green Belt?
After that experience, maybe you’re (sensibly) a bit wary before accepting yet another invite from me for a nice long drive. Even if I promise to bring snacks, just like last time. And if I sort the playlist (track 1: Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs” - quintessential #planorak rock). Even then, you may be hesitating. What if he just starts banging on about the Green Belt again (always a risk on a road-trip with me, as my friends and family will tell you)? And why-oh-why does he want to take me to rural Hertfordshire? Well. Let me tell you:
You may remember, if you were still awake by then, right at the end of our Burley-in-Wharfdale trip, after we’d been over the gamut of Inspector and Secretary of State decisions where permissions for new homes had been granted in the Green Belt, I ventured a wee hypothesis:
“When a site is proposed for release from the Green Belt and allocation for housing through an emerging plan, but the plan has not yet been adopted, very special circumstances may be made out in circumstances where (a) the Council has a substantial housing shortage, and (b) the site fails substantially or entirely to contribute to Green Belt purposes.”
Well, in April, I road-tested that hypothesis at a 2 week planning inquiry for 100 homes on an unallocated greenfield site on the edge of Colney Heath, smack bang on the boundary between St Albans and Welwyn Hatfield and within the Metropolitan Green Belt (full disclosure: I acted for the Appellant, Canton Ltd, at the inquiry along with a stellar team listed here).
The decision allowing the appeal and granting planning permission is here. And that’s why you need to come with me to Colney Heath. I want to show you what happened.
And why my creaky old hypothesis was wrong.
1,000 years ago, Hertfordshire was the place your deer crossed the river (“heort ford”). Just a little more recently, the area around our destination - Colney Heath - has been at the confluence of two opposing forces in English planning:
1st, in 1948, Hatfield was designated as a New Town under New Towns Act - a bold and creative time for #planoraks.
But 2nd, we get to the 1950s, and the flip side of the New Towns movement: the Metropolitan Green Belt. Which, let me remind you, is huuuuuuge: the Metropolitan Green Belt around London is half a million hectares, 3 times bigger than Greater London itself, bigger than Trinidad and Tobago and twice the size of Luxembourg.
For a bit of context - (1) my mini-rant in the Financial Times here about why the way Green Belt policy is mangled, mis-applied and misunderstood makes it, for my money, the most powerful and retrogressive planning policy in England, (2) my post about its toxic relationship to the Housing Delivery Test here, (3) my post on why the Green Belt has stymied so many local plans from moving forward here, (4) my explainer on the “exceptional circumstances” required to release Green Belt land through a plan here, and (5) my explainer on the “very special circumstances” you need to get permission for unallocated Green Belt sites here.
Where we’re headed, Colney Health - right on the boundary between St Albans and Welwyn Hatfield - there’s a lot of Green Belt around. Today, 79% of Welwyn Hatfield is in the Green Belt, and 82% of its neighbour St Albans. But there’s been no strategic review of Hertfordshire’s Green Belt in almost 40 years. St Albans’ most “recent” development plan document dates back to November 1994 (when Baby D topped the charts with that timeless classic Let Me Be Your Fantasy). That makes it the oldest local plan in the country. 18 years even before the 1st NPPF. There have been two attempts to adopt a new plan in St Albans since 1994. Both have failed - for why, have a look here.
And position’s not much better over the boundary in Welwyn Hatfield. Its last plan was adopted in 2005. The Council started preparing its evidence for the next local plan back in 2005. Alas. That journey continues. The Welwyn Hatfield plan examination is now (by a considerable distance) the longest- running in the country. The plan was submitted in May 2017 – 4 years ago. Remarkably, it is still being examined under the 2012 NPPF. Which has already been superseded not once but twice.
And how is housing delivery going in these districts? Well. Not great. When it comes to affordable housing, St Albans has a shortfall of around 4,000 homes over the last 7 years. For Welwyn Hatfield, it’s almost 4,000 in the last 5 years. Overall, both Councils are projected to deliver over 2,500 homes below their minimum requirements over the next 5 years.
Which takes us to our field at the edge of Colney Heath. Not allocated for anything. Not proposed to be allocated for anything. Just a pleasant if not particularly spectacular green field on the edge of a lovely Hertfordshire village. In the Green Belt. Both Councils - St Albans and Welwyn Hatfield - firmly resisting the idea of housing development on this field for a host of reasons, but the headline was the alleged harm to the openness and purposes of the Green Belt which was said not to be outweighed by very special circumstances.
So why did the Inspector allow the appeal for 100 new homes?
Credit where credit’s due: our Planning Inspector, Christa Masters, was absolutely superb. She’s top of the tree, as far as I’m concerned. And her decision repays reading in full. But to give you a flavour, here are 5 headlines:
On the site-specifics, the Inspector thought it was a visually contained site more associated with the urban edge of the village than the wider open countryside.
Still, she found the inevitable: new homes on an open field where there are not currently any homes causes considerable harm to Green Belt “openness” and she gave that the substantial weight which national policy requires.
More interesting was her approach to the 3rd Green Belt purpose - safeguarding the countryside from encroachment. On that, the Inspector found that because the site’s character was more akin to the urban edge, and separate from the wider open countryside, there would be no harm to that Green Belt purpose (that passage of the decision warrants very close reading - opens up a really interesting line of argument). Or indeed to any other Green Belt purpose.
No other technical constraints. Even though we’d originally had 8 reasons from refusal from both LPAs, that was pared back by the time of the inquiry. No harm to the setting of a nearby listed building. No highways concern. No ecology issue. The site was, the Inspector found, in a sustainable location for new development (that’s another part of the decision which warrants a close read).
Which brings us to very special circumstances. Given the bleak picture on supply, and the acute scale of unmet need, the Inspector gave very substantial weight both to the delivery of market and affordable housing (and further substantial weight to 10 self-build units). Those benefits clearly outweighed the harm to the Green Belt by inappropriateness, along with the harm to Green Belt openness. So… very special circumstances were made out.
So what’s really notable about the Colney Heath decision? What makes it different? What makes it, to coin a phrase, very special?
For me, it’s more about the things which weren’t in play:
There was no allocation. No proposed allocation. No element of previously developed land. No enabling development. Nothing, really. None of that extra-special sauce which has characterised the Green Belt decisions I summarised here.
No. This one’s a pure Green Belt case. An open, green field on the edge of a village. And the circumstances which tipped the scales and won the day: housing need. Pure and simple. Housing need, and the failures to deliver housing in the context of the break-down in the plan-led system in this part of Hertfordshire which has had, let’s be clear, disastrous socio-economic consequences for many thousands of people.
So my thesis above needs re-visiting folks. You don’t always need a proposed allocation. You don’t always need enabling development. Or previously developed land. Or anything else. No. Sometimes - like in Colney Heath - you can get planning permission on the basis of a good site, a brilliant Inspector, a fantastic witness team and - I’m sorry to say - a tragic and chronic failure of the “plan-led” system to deliver homes for people who need them.
Anyway. I hope that was worth the road-trip, friends. In the meantime, stay well. If you’re ever near the Colney Heath nature reserve do drop by - it’s glorious. And whatever else you do, of course, #keeponplanning.
