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

Despite all the following information being known by North Herts District Council (NHD), it signed a Statement of Common Ground in December 2020 (ED224).

• NHDC has included the EOL development in its Local Plan based on out of date information about Luton’s unmet housing needs. Luton confirmed in March that the review of their Local Plan (adopted in 2017) is still at an early stage when it was supposed to have been reviewed and updated by mid 2021. This means that Luton’s unmet housing need has not been updated.
• A thorough review of publicly available information on Luton’s house building programme and housing requirements has shown that Luton will be building c. 14,700 houses through to 2031 compared to the 8,500 stated in LBC’s Local Plan (an increase of 6,200)
• In August 2020, Opinion Research Services carried out an analysis of Luton’s housing needs at the request of the North Herts District Council’s Inspector. This showed that the previous housing requirement of 17,800 through to 2031 could now be reduced to 16,700 (a reduction of 1,100.)
• This means that Luton’s updated unmet housing need is now around 2,000 (16,700 need identified in the August 2020 ORS analysis minus the 14,700 with planning permission to 2031).
• Moreover, the Luton Inspector, when agreeing to the 2017 Luton Local Plan, stated that the ‘best fit’ for any unmet housing need was in Central Bedfordshire which has committed to 7,350 homes and actually has the capacity for at least 8,850. many of which are already built or under construction

I strongly object to NHDC including the proposed building of 2,100 houses in Green Belt surrounding the villages of Cockernhoe, Mangrove Green, Tea Green and Wandon End to meet Luton’s unmet housing need. As stated above, Luton can no longer demonstrate that there is an unmet need and their own inspector has stated that the preferred location for housing is in Central Bedfordshire which has the capacity.