The Plan has adopted as the proposed sites for development in and around Baldock land belonging to Hertfordshire County Council(HCC) - mostly Green Belt used for small-holdings and recreation. Baldock has more HCC owned land than the other North Herts towns and so it has been proposed that the town will take a disproportionately large number of new homes which will increase its size by more than 70% during the Plan period. Other sites of similar size in Letchworth and Hitchin were originally put forward but were withdrawn and it is not apparent that these sites have been assessed for suitability which could have spread the load more equitably. In particular there has been insufficient co-operation with Letchworth Heritage foundation over the site North of Letchworth (LG1) which has been allocated only for the needs of Letchworth. The West of Stevenage site has not been considered for this stage of the Plan, again for no apparent reason, and its adoption would have reduced significantly traffic movement through Baldock's historic town centre.
Site BA1 is Green Belt land and the Plan acknowledges that it has moderate to high landscape sensitivity as well as being difficult to integrate successfully into the rest of Baldock.
The sites on and close to Clothall Common (BA2, BA3, BA4, BA5) will deliver several hundred homes when complete but are not treated as strategic sites and so won't provide the infrastructure that so many new residents will need.