Further Proposed Modifications to the North Hertfordshire Local Plan 2011- 2031

Please accept the following objections to the plans to build 2100 houses on the GREEN BELT to the East of Luton.

The information we offer below for a very important and crucial final representation concerns the Evidence Document ED224.
The fundamental point we make is that NHDC has included the EOL development in its Local Plan based on out-of-date information concerning Luton’s unmet housing needs. Luton’s Local Plan was adopted in 2017 including a Policy LLP40 to review its Local Plan commencing in 2019 and completing by mid-2021. ED224 defends the need for the development, known as “East of Luton” (EOL), based on historically calculated dwelling numbers by Luton as explained below. Let us remember that these houses are proposed solely to meet Luton’s unmet housing needs.

Luton has confirmed, this March, that the Review is at an early stage and it has no exact date when it will be finished. This is at least two years late. This failure to carry out the review in due time means that the number of houses required and being built in Luton, and the resulting unmet need in the town, has not been formally updated, thus giving NHDC an excuse to continue to justify the need for the houses at EOL.

Those of us residents of Cockernhoe, Mangrove Green and Wigmore who are campaigning against this development have carried out a painstaking review of publicly available information on Luton’s house building programme and housing requirements. This concludes, with fully supported evidence, that:

1) due to significantly increased grants of planning permissions and public announcements, Luton will be building around 14,700 houses through to 2031. compared to 8,500 stated in the LBC Local Plan. These are all on brownfield sites;
2) an updated analysis of Luton’s housing needs, carried out by Opinion Research Services in August 2020 at the request of the NHDC Inspector, showed that the previous housing requirement of 17,800 through to 2031 would now be reduced to 16,700;
3) these two facts mean the unmet housing need from Luton drops to around 2,000 (16,700 -14,700), compared to 9,300 (17,800-8,500) in the Luton Local Plan;
4) the Luton Inspector - when giving the go-ahead for the Luton Local Plan in 2017 - stated the ‘best fit’ for any unmet housing need was Central Beds which has committed to provide 7,350 dwellings. In fact, it has allocated 20 sites with capacity for at least 8,850 dwellings from which to provide that help. Hundreds of those houses are already built or under construction;
5) had Luton carried out its Review, these figures would have come to light formally meaning that NHDC does not need to allow development at EOL;
6) all this information is known to NHDC and yet it signed a Statement of Common Ground in December 2020 (ED224) with Luton, Bloor Homes and the Crown Estate sticking to the out-of-date numbers to continue justifying its EOL plans. Central Beds - the most important neighbouring local authority to Luton - was not a party to this Statement;
7) furthermore, there is no evidence at all that NHDC officials and Councillors have carried out adequate, or even any, due diligence on Luton’s housing figures. This is of extreme concern but we believe our investigations have identified the accurate facts.