Three Rivers District Council have issued the Local Plan for the District where they are being required by Government to provide thousands of new dwellings in the District over the next ten years.
Every Council in England is facing the same problem so it is not Three Rivers who are being “picked on” but Residents’ Associations across the country are, of course, up in arms regarding some of the plans.
Your Committee have looked at the proposals and are happy to see that, since the initial list issued in 2018, many of the sites we objected to at the time have been removed from the list.
There are some sites we still object to and some where we are suggesting alternative plans.
We have to accept that the District Council are being forced into the position to provide additional housing but there is one point where, whilst accepting the numbers, we want to insist on: most, if not all, of these new dwellings should be low-cost one and two-bedroom properties as we need somewhere for our children to live and, in most cases, they have to move away when they fly the nest as the homes in Batchworth, Rickmansworth and Mill End are too expensive to stay close to Mum and Dad.
We also need to ensure that the infrastructure is in place to support the large number of new dwellings.
We have to accept, I am afraid, that we will lose some of our Green Belt but, happily, the loss will not be as great as feared under the 2018 list. The Association will try to keep this to a minimum.
We will await the planning proposals for each individual site and respond in each case. We will put our initial comments on our website and we will review each proposal as it is published.
In the meantime, you will find full details on the TRDC website and have two chances to comment: TRDC will be sending out details of the overall plan to each household in the near future and there will be a public consultation following that.
Please make sure you read the information sent to you and respond to the consultation.