Local Plan 2011-2031 Proposed Submission Draft

I would like to register my objection to the North Herts District Council's Local Plan which proposes to build over 300 new houses on Green Belt land on the outskirts of Codicote.

In the first place, traffic through Codicote is already unacceptably high, with daily traffic jams at morning and evening peak hours in the High Street. There is a very poor public transport system and the addition of the proposed house would only exacerbate the current situation by adding around 600 cars travelling through the village, without there being much scope for a developer to sufficiently mitigate the adverse effect of the developments on traffic in and around the area, a required by the Local Plan. This means that in relation to traffic the Local Plan is unsound because of failing one of the four key criteria - that it must be "Justified - the plan should be the most appropriate strategy, when considered against the reasonable alternatives, based on proportionate evidence".

In the second place, paragraph 14 of the NPPF states that "At the heart of the National Planning Policy Framework is a presumption in favour of sustainable development, which should be seen as a golden thread running through both plan-making and decision-taking." Already, Codicote has the lowest level of sustainable travel of all the preferred housing development areas in the district. The heavy traffic on the roads discourages many people from considering cycling to work already. I commute to work in Hatfield by cycling along St Albans Road out of the village. In the last ten years I have seen the volume of traffic on this narrow country lane increase enormously, making cycling more and more dangerous (as evidenced by some narrow escapes from being involved in accidents that I have had). The increase in traffic that the proposed housing would bring about would cause more people to start driving along St Albans Road making this road even more dangerous for cyclists. I therefore posit that the Local Plan fails the test of soundness on the basis of another of the four key criteria - "Consistent with national policy - the plan should enable the delivery of sustainable development in accordance with the policies in the National Planning Policy Framework."

In the third place, the land on which the houses are to be built is Green Belt land, which according to the NHDC's Local Plan of 1996 should be "permanently open". We moved to Codicote sixteen years ago because of the countryside which we love and in the belief that given that because it is Green Belt land it would be protected from development. In June 2016 the Planning Minister made it very clear that Green Belt boundaries should only be adjusted in exceptional circumstances, definitely not because of the demand for housing alone, and with the support of local people. As a local, I do not support Green Belt boundaries around Codicote being adjusted, nor does anyone I know in the village. I believe the NHDC's Local Plan fails the test for "soundness" because it does not comply with the Government's National Planning policy.

I also object to the fact that NHDC is willing to use Green Belt land rather than stipulating that Brownfield land should be developed first. There is no justification for using Green Belt land, which is supposed to be protected, given that Brownfield land is available (as shown in a recent report by the Campaign to Protect Rural England). NHDC could also seriously consider the alternative proposal of a new Garden City (as advocated by the University of Hertfordshire), rather than choosing the 'easy' option of building on Green Belt land. The addition of over 300 houses to Codicote will change the character of our village, and it will impact on the quality of life of its inhabitants in terms of the surrounding environment, stress caused by additional traffic noise and traffic jams, as well as air pollution. Surely this cannot be the most justified/appropriate course of action to address the need for more housing.