Monday night’s result was that the Cala application was REFUSED ! 🎉🥳👏😁🎉
However, this is just one battle. Cala will appeal. We must not lose the momentum – we must continue to fight now to change the political context within which the appeal will be heard ! More on that soon !
Thank you to everyone for all your support !
A couple of articles in local papers are listed below.
You can also watch the recording of the meeting from the link below.
Together we can Keep Chiswell Green !!
The impact of the additional traffic that will be generated by the proposed new development is a MATERIAL CONSIDERATION in the planning process but has been completely dismissed by Herts County Highways whose view has been accepted by the case officer. Comparatively, this was accepted as a material consideration in the recent (Nov ‘22) decision by East Herts District Council to refuse 350 new homes in Buntingford.
Providing land for a new 2 Form Entry primary school on Chiswell Green Lane is unnecessary as the local primary schools are currently under-subscribed, the birth rate is steadily declining, and the actual number of households in the 2021 census confirms that past forecasts have over-estimated population growth in Hertfordshire. Chiswell Green doesn’t need a new primary school so providing land for one is not a benefit. This land will become more housing in time.
The developer has stated that there could be £10.9m in additional household spending and £920,287 in additional council tax revenue for SADC. These figures are not justifiable and fundamentally flawed. The suggested economic benefit cannot be given any positive weighting in the planning decision.
Cala is destroying huge amounts of biodiversity and is proposing to pay for biodiversity units to be provided “offsite”. Achieving this offset is likely to be challenging enough so as to be unachievable. Either way, Chiswell Green is losing a significant amount of biodiversity.
In addition to the loss of biodiversity, the planning officer attributes positive weight to Cala’s use of 3.34ha to provide open and play space but Chiswell Green will actually lose 14ha of prime green belt. This is a net loss, not a benefit.
Development of the Cala site will inevitably lead to the development of the remainder of the plot bordered by Chiswell Green Lane and Noke Lane – up to 1,000 new houses.
SADC should not allow any new housing on Green Belt until it can demonstrate that all its brownfield sites have been built on first. It should also only allow building of the types of houses that are needed in St Albans, not allow developers to build what they want to.
Click the link below to view the application on the planning website:
Planning Application 5/2022/0927
Watch our Video:
The meeting will be held at the COUNCIL CHAMBER – COUNCIL OFFICES (next to Alban Arena).
The case officer posted his report and recommendation to the portal on Friday. Inexplicably he is recommending that the application be GRANTED!
The case officer’s full report is available here:
Case Officer’s Report
This report will be circulated to the committee of councillors, who will meet on Monday 28th November at the Civic Offices to decide whether to accept the officer’s recommendation or whether to oppose it and refuse the application.
It is therefore absolutely crucial that the maximum number of Chiswell Green residents attend this committee meeting to show councillors the depth of local opposition.
This could literally be our last opportunity to stop this application, so if you don’t want this massive development to go ahead, your attendance is absolutely vital!
Our planning consultant will be making his 3 minute speech on behalf of KCG and the local community, 1 local councillor and 1 parish councillor will speak for 5 minutes each. The developer will also be allowed to speak for 5 minutes.
A good turnout will show the planning committee the strength of feeling in the local community towards this application, and they cannot ignore that. A large turnout is known to have an impact on the decision, so please do attend if you are able to.
We hope to see you there!
Add the CALA Decision Meeting to your calendar
The meeting will be held at the COUNCIL CHAMBER – COUNCIL OFFICES (next to Alban Arena).
The case officer has not yet made his recoomendation.
Members of the public are permitted to attend in person (as spectators), so it would be great to have a significant number of residents of Chiswell Green present to demonstrate the strength of opposition to this development.
We had a great turnout for the Polo Fields decision meeting – but it would be fantastic to have a much larger number of residents at this meeting regarding CALA
New documents have been submitted by the applicant relating to
Please do view the documents and submit any new objections before the closing date.
Click the link below to view the application on the planning website:
Planning Application 5/2022/0927
In their response to the application they stated:
“National Highways has been appointed by the Secretary of State for Transport as a
strategic highway company under the provisions of the Infrastructure Act 2015 and is
the highway authority, traffic authority and street authority for the Strategic Road
Network (SRN). The SRN is a critical national asset and as such we work to ensure that
it operates and is managed in the public interest, both in respect of current activities
and needs as well as in providing effective stewardship of its long-term operation
and integrity.
This response represents our formal recommendation with regard to planning
application 5/2022/0927 and has been prepared by Jen Searle, Spatial Planner for
National Highways.
National Highways requires more time to review information from Hertfordshire council.
Considering the above, National Highways recommends that planning permission not
be granted for a further period of three months, from the date of this notice, to allow the
applicant time to submit additional supporting information. ”
Click the link below to view the application on the planning website where you can still upload an objection:
Planning Application 5/2022/0927
We Can stop our Green Belt from being taken away!
