20 Apr Public Inquiry – Thursday 20th April
UPDATE FOR THURSDAY 20th APRIL
A summary of today’s events:
The Inquiry started the day with KCG Chair Shirani on the stand with John Clemow asking her about the possibility of what has happened in Colney Heath also happening in Chiswell Green.
In Colney Heath, after an appeal was allowed by Inspector Masters, this opened the way to many more applications to build on Green Belt land in and around Colney Heath.
Shirani expressed the fear that if Inspector Boniface allowed one or both of the appeals in this inquiry, a similar thing would happen in Chiswell Green. She showed a map of sites that had already expressed an interest in building on Green Belt near Chiswell Green.
Matthew questioned her on the same subject and she clarified where the Green Belt boundary would move to if all expressions of interest were granted planning permission.
Stuart from KCG then took the stand and was questioned re an illustrated presentation he gave on local transport issues. The developer’s lawyers claimed that we could not expect new developments to solve existing transport problems. Stuart’s point was that they would make them worse.
That finished KCG’s time on the stand, and several days of CALA specialists began.
First was Ben Hunter on Education. He covered using part of the CALA site for a primary school, or alternatively for a Special Needs (PNI) school. He accepted that there was no agreement that HCC needed either type of school, but tried to make the point that a new build school would be better for the environment than ongoing maintenance of an old school building. He admitted that it would need 800 houses to justify an additional primary school.
We then had Anthony Jones (CALA) on transport. He was a very keen on maximising cycling from the new development, even to St Albans City Station. This presentation drew the most negative responses so far on the KCG Campaign Chat WhatsApp.
Then, in the absence of Julia Tindale, we had Lisa Toyne on Landscape. She tried to justify building on the Green Belt, but, in our opinion, didn’t do very well. There was debate on whether there was harm, substantial harm, or very substantial harm. Also, a debate as to the degree of openness that would remain for residents of properties facing onto the CALA site. She claimed that only 41% of the site (excluding the school site) would be built on, but accepted that there would be adverse visual effects.
We seem to be running about a day ahead of schedule and tomorrow’s programme has been altered to bring forward the planned appearance of Steve Collins, owner of the Polo Site. Not sure what time, so keep an eye on the webcast.
The link for the recording of today’s webcast is:
https://stalbans.public-i.tv/
The link to tomorrow’s webcast is:
https://stalbans.public-i.tv/
Scheduled start time is 9:30am.
Every day the Inquiry will be live-streamed so will be available to view online at:
https://stalbans.public-i.tv/
Further Inquiry details and documents are available on the SADC website at:
https://www.stalbans.gov.uk/
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