A statutory consultation from Central Government begins.
After the previous consultation held by Three Rivers District Council, we know that TRDC prefers two. But Central Government would also like to hear from all residents about what they think about the Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) – two, three or four unitary authorities.
Please read more about it and find survey link below:
https://www.hertfordshire-lgr.co.uk/
Click green map below to zoom in.
Message from Colne Valley Regional Park.
Our key points are:
Message from Aquadrome Steering Group.
Following a Councillor briefing at the end of last week, I am pleased to confirm that the Public Engagement for the RIBA 2 Concept Masterplan has now gone live. This will run until Monday 16 March 2026 and will include a public drop in event on Saturday 7 March between the hours of 9.30am and 2pm at the Aquadrome.
The following links to the Have Your Say Platform have all the details:
Summary page:
Rickmansworth Aquadrome – share your thoughts | Have Your Say Three Rivers
Direct survey link:
https://haveyoursay.threerivers.gov.uk/rickmansworth-aquadrome-project/surveys/concept-designs
In addition to the engagement, we have also updated “The Story So Far” page on the TRDC website, to include a presentation we shared last week with Councillors, and information on the engagement. Alongside this, we have also received the completed specialist Hydrological Reports. A summary report has been added alongside the engagement information and also included on the specific “Woodland Walk” page of the website. The technical reports can be located on the Aquadrome Data Hub page. I have included all of these links below for you:
We are also seeking input from people with a disability, or those caring for people with disabilities to tell us about their experience and how we can improve the Aquadrome for you. There is a separate Accessibility Survey as part of the “Have Your Say” platform, which if you could also share that would be great: Rickmansworth Aquadrome Accessibility Survey | Have Your Say Three Rivers
The RIBA Stage 2 document will be the main focus of the Steering group meeting in March, however you may wish to familiarise yourself with it beforehand and take the opportunity to complete the survey, so your thoughts are captured.
Please do share this with your local communities and anyone you feel would be interested in completing the engagement form or having a look at the hydrological reports, which are fascinating.
The government has published updated national design guidance to improve the quality of new housing and neighbourhoods in England, supporting wider planning reforms and the delivery of 1.5 million homes this Parliament. The guidance sets clear expectations for well-designed, walkable and climate-resilient neighbourhoods, with homes close to local services, adaptable layouts, strong local character, high-quality public spaces and better integration of nature. It is intended to speed up planning decisions by giving councils and developers a shared design framework, with further model design codes to follow, and is open for consultation until 10 March 2026.
Read in-depth information before completing consultation: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-design-guidance-to-raise-the-bar-for-new-build-developments
Hertfordshire County Council want to make changes to recycling centres across Hertfordshire so please complete this consultation survey to let them know what you think:
The link to the survey is at the very bottom of the webpage above. If you can’t find it, click here:
https://surveys.hertfordshire.gov.uk/s/recyclingcentreconsultation/
Slides were presented by the Leader of Three Rivers District Council Cllr. Stephen Giles-Medhurst and can be found on the TRDC’s website: www.threerivers.gov.uk or download them here.
Further reading:
Note: the consultation survey ends on 30th September. Please use it to tell councils and central government what is really important to you, as a resident of Rickmansworth:
This meeting was attended by multiple local residents. The next Local Area Forum is 13th November.
Slides on this topic were presented by the Leader of Three Rivers District Council Cllr. Stephen Giles-Medhurst and can be found on the TRDC’s website: www.threerivers.gov.uk or download them here.
As per our previous post from Jon Bishop, there are three options for unitary authorities (areas) which will merge Hertfordshire’s current 11 areas (Three Rivers being one of those areas) into 2, 3 or 4 Unitary Authorities. Note, the option with 4 Unitary Authorities splits Kings Langley over 2 Authorities – is this a good option?!
Multiple local residents asked why we needed this change at all, as Hertfordshire seems to be working rather well. Stephen agreed saying we have the lowest Council tax. But we were told that Central Government issued this demand so we all must engage in this current survey (closes 30th September, cannot be extended) and a secondary consultation by Central government which begins in Jan/Feb until May 2026. The 2nd consultation will have more detail/data like costs and savings for each of the three options, so we can make informed decisions. Please engage with both surveys and voice concerns. If we say what’s important to us in the surveys then we’re more likely to get what we need. They recommended that you tell your MP what you think during the 2nd consultation stage. They also recommended that each person completes each survey, not just one per household.
A few residents asked why 1 unitary authority wasn’t considered but we were told it was considered but rejected by all 11 Hertfordshire areas, across all political spectrums. This is because a Mayor can’t oversee just 1 unitary authority and it’s silly to combine us with Bucks/Essex/Sussex – it’s just too big an area. Central goverment have dictated that all areas in England need an elected Mayor – this is devolution / shifting power from Central government to Local government. Furthermore, Central government have asked our councils to make savings of £50m.
A report created by Consultants Pricewaterhouse purported savings were made when councils merged and pooled their resources and varied services together.
Council tax is the councils’ revenue and currently, 78% of the council tax we pay goes to our County Council and 10% goes to our District Council. 50% of our County Council’s budget is taken up by Adult Care and Children’s services so combining revenue and sharing costs/resources would be beneficial. They called this combining ‘equalisation’ which took into consideration areas that are wealthy vs deprived.
Three Rivers currently saves money on our in-house services, like waste collection and certain bus routes. Hopefully we will be merged with councils who have similar in-house services however, most councils have out-sourced these services. We would hate for our services to become so very costly under outsourced contracts so we should all mention this in the survey. An outsourced contract is only as good as the person who negotatiates a good deal for the council, on behalf of us, its residents. Negotiated services, costs and savings must be transparent.
Our RDRA Chairman asked about the current CIL money (Community Infrastructural Levy totalling £2m) earmarked for improvements to our local area but, after Unitary Authorities are set up, could be diverted to non-local areas. They mentioned setting up a Neighbour Area Committee to deal with this but we’re unclear of the details.
Those who face redundancy from this local government change would likely be TUPE’d to alternative but similar companies.
Current contracts would automatically transfer to the Unitary Authorities.
One resident asked whether the Northway building would be kept. They were hopeful, because it’s modern and useful, but there’s no way of knowing really.
Currently, there are 517 councillors in total in Hertfordshire, Three Rivers has 78 County Councillors and 39 District Councillors. Under each new Unitary Authority, the number of councillors is suggested to be between 30-100 and they would need to serve on multiple committees. They’re hoping to introduce evening meetings so that it’s more inclusive, i.e. more people can volunteer to become councillors. If you agree with this inclusive suggestion, please mention it in the survey.
One resident expressed a wish not to be paired with Watford because they’re “always putting up tower blocks” but this cannot be, simply because we’re located near to each other!
A Strategic Authority will also be created to look after Infrastructure projects, which will take over from the PCC (Police and Crime Commissioner). A Mayor will preside over both Unitary and Strategic Authorities. Parish or Town Councils will be an added layer underneath.
One resident questioned whether the Mayor could interfere with the Unitary Authorities work, in a politically motivated way, but we were told that the Mayor cannot “frustrate proceedings”. The Mayor would only really be in charge of transport.
One resident asked why our buses, which are supposed to have a life span of 8 years, are still running on our roads after 16 years. We were told the Council only funds a few bus services.
One resident kept on asking “what happened with Bucks” – this is what we found out:
They also mentioned Surrey had consultations on their change to Unitary Authorities.
By 1st April 2028 the Unitary Authorities will be up and running. In May 2028, there will be elections for the Mayor.
Please spread the word about this consultation – it closes on 30th September!
Local Government Reorganisation Survey: https://www.hertfordshire-lgr.co.uk/
This portion of the meeting was minuted so we expect those minutes to appear in the agenda for the next meeting, found here: https://moderngov.threerivers.gov.uk/ieListMeetings.aspx?CommitteeId=1149
If you need more information about this topic please contact: hertfordshire@connectpa.co.uk.
Click here for part 2 of the meeting: Ebury Play Area, Aquadrome, Woodland Path.
Message from Jon Bishop.
Stage 2 Review is here: https://www.threerivers.gov.uk/services/planning/planning-policy/new-local-plan#Evidence%20base towards the bottom of the page. They are long documents, so summary lists and maps are extracted below but the documents themselves contain more detail on each area.
You have probably seen the recent publicity from Stephen Giles-Medhurst about the fact that there are not enough “acceptable” sites to meet the Government targets. From what I can gather, I think we will be very short of the target which is good in terms of Green Belt defence but it does worry me that, if the figure is too low, we could end up with the Plan being found unsound by the Examiner. In the worst case, the Government could then step in and taking over all planning, including defining the Local Plan. This is the Armageddon scenario as residents will get little or no say in which sites are accepted for development. Let’s hope that a happy compromise can be found by the Council to both protect Green Belt and deliver enough housing to keep the Government happy. Together, we will need to work to make sure that residents views are properly heard in this.
(deadline 30th September)
The traffic lights on the options in the briefing note are based on a combination of information from TRDC and some analysis of available information. The Strategic Alignment category is the alignment to other high level strategic management in Hertfordshire – health, police and strategic planning.
It would be helpful if you could give me your views on:
This is the biggest change to council organisation in over 50 years and could have a material impact on the quality & cost of running councils for the foreseeable future.
Timelines are very tight, with the survey closing on 30th September.
https://rickmansworthresidents.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/LGR-Consultation-Briefing-TRJRA.pdf
Hertfordshire’s 11 councils have today (3 September) launched a second phase of engagement on the future of local government in the county.
Residents, community groups, businesses and wider stakeholders are invited to share their views on how services will be delivered in Hertfordshire in the years ahead. This is a once in a generation opportunity to help shape the future of local government.
In December 2024, the Government set out plans to simplify local government in England to make it easier for residents and businesses to access services and to save money.
In Hertfordshire, there are currently two types of council:
Under the Government’s plan, these councils will be replaced by new unitary councils that will deliver all services currently provided by the two separate types of council.
All councils in Hertfordshire are working together to explore what this would look like. The aim is to create a system of local government that is easy to understand, delivers good value for money and responds to the needs of local areas.
Over the next month, councils will hold a mix of in-person and online events across the county. A dedicated website will also give further information on the changes, how you can get involved and share your views. This will remain open until 30 September 2025. After this date councils will review all the feedback before submitting the final proposal to Government at the end of November.
Cllr Stephen Giles-Medhurst OBE, the Leader of Three Rivers District Council, said: “This is set to be a huge moment of change for local government in Hertfordshire, and in Three Rivers. For many years we have all been accustomed to having a county council and a district council responsible for different services in our areas.
“This forthcoming reorganisation will change that, and now is you chance to have your say about what you would like the future of local government in our county to look like. Would you like smaller councils or larger councils, covering bigger areas? Visit the website, come to the events, find out more and have your say.”
Hear Cllr. Stephen Giles Medhurst explain about the Local Government Reorganisation on YouTube (scroll to bottom of page)
This message from Three Rivers District Council is what we’ve all been waiting for! It’s important that our members contribute to this consultation on any sites or development in our area.
Three Rivers District Council is preparing a new Local Plan that will guide and manage future development in the district up to 2041. Following on from the previous Regulation 18 consultations which took place in 2021 and 2023, we are now carrying out a supplementary consultation on newly submitted sites and new policies. This Regulation 18 Newly Submitted Sites and New Policies (Part 5) Consultation contains new sites that were submitted for the Council’s consideration following a call for sites exercise earlier in 2025. Individual site assessments for these potential site allocations for housing have been undertaken as part of the Strategic Housing & Employment Land Availability Assessment (SHELAA) which is used to identify sites and broad locations with potential for development. This consultation also includes policies which have not yet been consulted on.
It is important to note these sites are in addition to those consulted on in 2021 and 2023. We are asking for your views on these potential new sites so we can consider them together with the previously submitted responses to previous Regulation 18 consultations. This will help us in drawing up a final proposal. To view and respond online to this consultation please visit the Council’s Have Your Say consultation platform, link below:
Link to Consultation Survey (scroll down to ‘Take Survey’ button):
https://haveyoursay.threerivers.gov.uk/local-plan-newly-submitted-sites-policies-consultation
Hard copies of the consultation document and supporting documents can also be viewed in the Council’s offices in Rickmansworth and at the public libraries located in the district. Written responses can be submitted by post to: Planning Policy, Three Rivers District Council, Three Rivers House, Northway, Rickmansworth, Herts, WD3 1RL
The consultation period starts on Wednesday 16th July 2025 and ends at 11:59pm on Sunday 31st August 2025.
The Local Plan Regulation 18 Consultation Documents, accompanying Sustainability Appraisal Working Notes and the evidence base studies which have been completed so far can be viewed on the Council’s website at: https://www.threerivers.gov.uk/services/planning/planning-policy/new-local-plan