As we have covered in previous newsletters, working with other Residents Associations from across the district, the CRA has been attempting to convince Three Rivers District Council to put forward a Local Plan with a lower number of new houses which would provide the new housing really required in the district whilst protecting Green Belt.
Despite the Leader of the Council receiving a letter from the government’s Housing Minister to say that the council could chose to do this, the response from Three Rivers Council has always been that this is not possible.
However, just last week Elmbridge Council in Surrey, who are under very similar pressures to Three Rivers, unanimously agreed to put to Examination a plan that does exactly this – providing for a lower level of new housing than that defined by the Standard Method so as to protect Green Belt.
Why is our council so resistant to doing this? Instead, they spend their time blaming everyone else for the mess that the Three Rivers Local Plan is in – with a further two-year delay recently announced leaving the district wide open to speculative applications in Green Belt from developers.
With elections coming up at the beginning of May, we will be asking all candidates for District Council to make a clear commitment to supporting the Residents Association position on the Local Plan. We will include more information on the feedback from candidates in our next newsletter.
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