Agenda item

To consider the following referrals from Cabinet:

 

 

	Cabinet minute number	Date of meeting	Report title
8.1	CA/076/20	22 September 2020	Budget Monitoring Q1 report
8.2	CA/078/20	22 September 2020	Loan agreement with West Herts Crematorium Committee
8.3	CA/087/20	20 October 2020	Treasury Management Report
8.4	CA/088/20	20 October 2020	Medium Term Financial Strategy
8.5	CA/089/20	20 October 2020	Local Plan Consultation Report
8.6	CA/091/20	20 October 2020	Car Parking Supplementary Planning Document
8.7	CA/092/20	20 October 2020	Herts Growth Board – Section 101 Committee

 

 

 

Resolved:

That the following be approved:

22 September 2020

 

8.1       CA/076/20       Budget Monitoring Q1 report

 

Decision

 

1. Recommend to Council approval of the revised capital programme to move £7.3m slippage identified at Quarter 1 into financial year 2021/22 as detailed in Appendix C.

 

2. Recommend to Council approval of supplementary revenue budgets as follows:

 

·         Supplementary budget of £140k in The Forum premises budget to fund the costs of ensuring the building is safe for staff to return under Coronavirus.

 

·         Supplementary budget of £60k in the Premises Insurance budget to fund additional costs of Uninsured Losses, to be funded from the Uninsured Losses reserve.

 

·         Supplementary budget of £253k in the Building Control service to fund the final settlement of Work in Progress following the transfer of the service to Hertfordshire Building Control. This is to be funded from the Management of Change reserve.

 

·         Supplementary budget of £33k in the Garage service, funded from the Invest to Save reserve, to fund a specialist project manager to lead on improvements to the garage letting process.

 

3. Recommend to Council approval of supplementary capital budgets as follows:

 

• A capital budget of £90k in the Waste and Recycling Capital budgets for new Wheeled Bins.

 

• Additional budget of £400k in the Fleet Replacement Budget, to fund additional vehicles.
  
  

• Capital budgets of £24k and £19k to fund electrical upgrade works at Berkhamsted Civic Centre and Victoria Hall Tring respectively.

 

• Capital budget of £15k for essential roofing improvements at The Denes.

 

 

8.2       CA/078/20       Loan agreement with West Herts Crematorium Committee

 

Decision

 

1. A £6m loan to the partner authorities of the West Herts Crematorium Joint Committee (WHCJC), and a supporting Deed of Contribution and Indemnity and delegate authority to the Corporate Director, Finance and Operations in consultation with the Portfolio Holder for Finance and Resources to finalise terms of the required legal documentation.

 

20 October 2020

 

8.3       CA/087/20       Treasury Management Report

 

Decision

 

The acceptance of the report on Treasury Management performance in 2019/20 and the Prudential Indicators for 2019/20.

 

8.4       CA/088/20       Medium Term Financial Strategy

 

Decision

 

The approval of the revised Medium Term Financial Strategy for the period 2020/21 – 2024/25, including the recommendations at Section 2 of the Strategy.

 

8.5       CA/089/20       Local Plan Consultation Report

 

Decision

 

1. That the Emerging Strategy for Growth (Appendix 1) is published for consultation under Regulation 18 of the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012 (as amended).

 

2. That authority is delegated to make changes to the Emerging Strategy for Growth , including any necessary to reflect the Cabinet’s and/or Council discussions and decision,  to the Assistant Director Planning, Development and Infrastructure in consultation with the Portfolio Holder for Planning and Infrastructure.

A recorded vote was held:

For: Adeleke, Anderson, Banks, Barrett, Bassadone, Beauchamp, Bhinder, Birnie, Durrant, Elliot, Griffiths, Guest, Hearn, Imarni, Maddern, Mahmood (Sobaan), Mahmood (Suqlain), Peter, Riddick, Rogers, Silwal, Sinha, G Sutton, R Sutton, Timmis, Williams, Wyatt-Lowe (27)

Against: Allen, Barry, Claughton, England, Freedman, Hobson, Hollinghurst, Link, McDowell, Pringle, Ransley, Stevens, Symington, Taylor, Tindall, Townsend, Uttley, Woolner (18)

Abstain: Mayor (1)

Therefore the decision was agreed.

 

8.6       CA/091/20       Car Parking Supplementary Planning Document

 

Decision

 

That the draft SPD is adopted.

 

8.7       CA/092/20       Herts Growth Board – Section 101 Committee

 

Decision

 

(1)   Agree to the establishment of the Hertfordshire Growth Board Joint Committee and Hertfordshire Growth Board Scrutiny Joint Committee and delegate such functions to the committees as set out in the annexed Hertfordshire Growth Board - Integrated Governance Framework and annexed Terms of Reference and Standing Orders for each committee.

 

(2)  Adopt the Hertfordshire Growth Board - Integrated Governance Framework into the Councils own constitutional framework and delegate authority to the Assistant Director, Corporate and Contracted Services to make any required changes to the Council’s constitution to give effect to the Governance Framework.

 

(3)  Agree that the Council’s nominated representative on the Hertfordshire Growth Board Committee shall be Councillor Andrew Williams as Leader of the Council and the approved substitute shall be Councillor  Margaret Griffiths as Deputy Leader

 

(4)   Delegate authority to the Leader of the Council to nominate the Council’s representative on the Hertfordshire Growth Board Scrutiny Joint Committee and approved substitute.

 

Resolved:

That the following be approved:

22 September 2020

8.1       CA/076/20       Budget Monitoring Q1 report

Decision

1. Recommend to Council approval of the revised capital programme to move £7.3m slippage identified at Quarter 1 into financial year 2021/22 as detailed in Appendix C.

 

2. Recommend to Council approval of supplementary revenue budgets as follows:

 

·         Supplementary budget of £140k in The Forum premises budget to fund the costs of ensuring the building is safe for staff to return under Coronavirus.

·         Supplementary budget of £60k in the Premises Insurance budget to fund additional costs of Uninsured Losses, to be funded from the Uninsured Losses reserve.

·         Supplementary budget of £253k in the Building Control service to fund the final settlement of Work in Progress following the transfer of the service to Hertfordshire Building Control. This is to be funded from the Management of Change reserve.

·         Supplementary budget of £33k in the Garage service, funded from the Invest to Save reserve, to fund a specialist project manager to lead on improvements to the garage letting process.

 

3. Recommend to Council approval of supplementary capital budgets as follows:

 

• A capital budget of £90k in the Waste and Recycling Capital budgets for new Wheeled Bins.

• Additional budget of £400k in the Fleet Replacement Budget, to fund additional vehicles.
  Capital budgets of £24k and £19k to fund electrical upgrade works at Berkhamsted Civic Centre and Victoria Hall Tring respectively.
• Capital budget of £15k for essential roofing improvements at The Denes.

 

8.2       CA/078/20       Loan agreement with West Herts Crematorium Committee

Decision

1. A £6m loan to the partner authorities of the West Herts Crematorium Joint Committee (WHCJC), and a supporting Deed of Contribution and Indemnity and delegate authority to the Corporate Director, Finance and Operations in consultation with the Portfolio Holder for Finance and Resources to finalise terms of the required legal documentation.

 

20 October 2020

8.3       CA/087/20       Treasury Management Report

Decision

The acceptance of the report on Treasury Management performance in 2019/20 and the Prudential Indicators for 2019/20.

8.4       CA/088/20       Medium Term Financial Strategy

 

Decision

The approval of the revised Medium Term Financial Strategy for the period 2020/21 – 2024/25, including the recommendations at Section 2 of the Strategy.

8.5       CA/089/20       Local Plan Consultation Report

Decision

1. That the Emerging Strategy for Growth (Appendix 1) is published for consultation under Regulation 18 of the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012 (as amended).

 

2. That authority is delegated to make changes to the Emerging Strategy for Growth , including any necessary to reflect the Cabinet’s and/or Council discussions and decision,  to the Assistant Director Planning, Development and Infrastructure in consultation with the Portfolio Holder for Planning and Infrastructure.

Councillor Williams presented the item containing the next iteration of Dacorum’s new local plan; a great deal of work by members and officers over the last 18 months setting up the councils draft policies and proposals for new development to 2038. He fully recognised that the growth proposals put forward in this plan are not without controversy. Indeed there has been lengthy debate by members during two meetings of the SPAE committee in September and there are concerns about the overall number of homes we have to plan for, the amount of Greenbelt land required and the impact this will leave on some of our towns and villages. He thanked the overview and scrutiny committee for their thorough scrutiny of the proposal to this stage and for the work of the member task and finish group which has met for several months now with officers to guide the shape and content of the plan. He had no doubt that this consultation has sparked a great deal of discussion amongst our residents but he reminded them that this was a consultation only and no decision is taken by this consultation. This is a genuine opportunity to comment on the proposals, we will listen to the reviews received and there is opportunity to change the content in the plan before we finalise. Whilst many will be concerns about the total level of growth planned in the next local plan, there are positives in the plan which we wouldn’t want to lose as part of the process; new policies that will make sure new developments are as green as we can make them, delivering on our climate emergency aspirations, a new approach to affordable housing that will mean many more genuinely affordable homes are delivered, and for the first time a detailed infrastructure delivery plan setting out what infrastructure we need, where and when, and ensuring this is delivered in order to support any potential growth. We understand the concerns of some members that now is not the time to be consulting on a plan of this magnitude, Covid-19 undoubtedly as indicated earlier has profoundly changed the way we live and work and the governments recently published planning white paper could have a significant impact for how we plan in the future. We understand there is a temptation to hold off but it is important that we get a plan in place and it has been three years since we last consulted the public on the local plan. Despite the uncertainties, government continues to press for plans to be in place and we need a proactive strategy in there to support our economic recovery. Members will debate this and come to a view on this issue this evening, but as Leader of the Council, the reason he was pressing for us to continue with the consultation and hoped all members would feel able to support that, is that there was lots of discussions we have heard about government targets about the potential for the ministers to make announcements around the algorithms that distribute the houses and the number of potential homes that Dacorum has to accommodate to decrease. I think we all hope that is the case and that the currently suggested 922 is decreased by whatever action the government takes, but we cannot be certain of that and we need to prepare for the fact that all major political parties have a commitment to deliver 300k homes a year and it’s very possible that the government will stick to that commitment and it may through its algorithm redistribute that number around the country but it’s not certain our number will go down and could potentially as a worst case scenario go back up to near the 1025 as it was before. We have committed in our motion, and this administration, is committed to tackling the government on this and it’s very possible that we may come to a view that we may be upset with the government requirement and we may want to produce a local plan next year or whenever it might be that delivers below the governments requirements for Dacorum, and in doing so I think it is essential that we have the evidence to back up what will be a very difficult argument to make. He believed passionately that one of the things that will help in the argument is consulting on the level of 922 and getting what he hoped would be several thousands of letters or comments from residents objecting to that level of development of all sorts of reasons. The proposed consultation will be extended from the statutory 6 weeks to 10 weeks taking us into February, and he hoped it would engage many of our residents. He firmly believed that if we come to a point where we are saddled with such a high number that being able to turn to a comprehensive rejection of those numbers will support us in that argument and for that reason he believed it was the right time to go out to consultation because the planning process and demand for new housing, the pressure we have from our developers and the fact that we’ve gone beyond the five year plan period, we are going to come under pressure. Therefore he urged all members to support the resolution from cabinet this evening.

Councillor Tindall said he would like to move deferment of the consultation. He found himself in a difficult position proposing deferment of consultation but for him a consultation on an incomplete local plan was not a meaningful consultation. He accepted a lot of what Councillor Williams had said, but at the end of the line we do not have the transport infrastructure studies and the geography of our borough is such that transport is actually quite a large area of concern. Also we are in lockdown because of Covid-19, hopefully ending early December, but then everybody is immediately looking forward to Christmas so he would consider that starting the consultation sometime after Christmas when more facts are known. He felt there were an awful lot of uncertainties in this draft and felt it would be helpful to wait a few weeks/months until everything is in place. He said he had been part of the process in which this local plan had been developed and he thanked the officers involved that devoted an enormous amount of time to it, often under difficult circumstances, and we have been served well by our officers on this one. He believed there were sufficient concerns to take this unusual step and ask for a delay so that all of the various parts of the local plan can be made available to that everybody has the opportunity to go into a full consultation under perhaps more pleasant times so that the council can be really certain that we have the residents opinions when we look at the results at the end of that consultation. He proposed that members vote against a consultation at this time.

Councillor Ransley said she would like to ask for a delay in this consultation. She felt it’s really important that we consult with our residents and whilst Councillor Williams talked about uncertainties there are two certainties; we are in a pandemic at the moment and also Christmas is coming. Some people cannot access the plan in the way they would like to as it’s very difficult to look at maps on a computer screen and those that don’t have computers are using phones. Therefore she felt when people are able to look at bigger screens, talk to people in person, it’s really important for them to be able to do that.

Councillor Birnie said he had sympathy with the views expressed by the opposition but he was more concerned that we get on with this process if possible. He said we were all aware that the numbers could increase or decrease when the government makes a decision, but what concerned him was the comments about a huge amount of extra work relating to such infrastructure matters as school provision would be necessary which will delay the process even further. He wanted to be absolutely sure that despite the delay this complete revamp would cause, the council is preferred to engage in the necessary drastic revamp of the plan however long it may take even if it delays what officers and members would like which is to get to the section 18 review. He appreciated the Leaders urge to get on with matters and in particular to gauge the opinion generally of the public, and he did agree that, for example, if we got a resounding no from the public that it would strengthen our hand in going back to government and asking for a reduction in the numbers of housing required. He wanted to be absolutely certain that the whole process of a complete revamp will be gone through diligently by officers even though it’s a huge amount of work. Like Councillor Tindall, he was also part of the task and finish group and helped prepare this draft and he was prepared to go through the whole thing line by line if necessary to make sure that it’s perfect and right for all residents.

Councillor Symington supported the proposal to defer this consultation. She paid tribute to all the officers involved and everybody that has contributed so much to the local plan already. The fact is that things have very materially changed and only on Monday we heard the Minister of State say he will be making a statement on revised plans in the weeks ahead, and he told MP’s ‘the Covid crisis was causing the most substantial change to city centres and town centres since the second world war.’ She felt if that was what we were getting from the Minister of State then we should also be pausing for reflection. He went on to say that the government would consider what those opportunities will be for repurposing of offices into residential, for turning retail into mixed use, and that will lead us to a different approach to distributing housing numbers across the country. So this from the very man that we should be taking it from, to be going to consultation with that as our background just two days ago, feels completely wrong. She sympathised for the uncertainty of residents, to be going to consultation about something they fear or worry about when there is so much going on and so much may change. She said we were coming up to Christmas and there may well could be another lockdown after Christmas so the 10 week consultation period doesn’t solve the problem. In terms of predatory developers, we have a current plan in place until 2031 and she said she knew it wasn’t the right plan but that doesn’t mean we have to go through all of this and the residents of Berkhamsted feel they’ve already been through a regulation 18 two or three years ago. They came up with a lot of suggestions and those haven’t been ignored but to have to go back to them and say we’re going to do another regulation 18 and we’re only doing it to get negative feedback sends all the wrong messages. She felt we need to go with a positive vision of what we want and not a negative vision of something that we’re expecting people to be batted away. She strongly believed that however difficult it is to turn away from all the work that has been done we should be parking it until we have resolution on some of these issues so she fully supported delaying this consultation.

Councillor Taylor said when we were first asked to review the draft local plan in the overview and scrutiny committee the draft plan made reference to a transport plan. When he asked to see this he was told it hadn’t been published. If you plan to increase the population of a town by 2030 or 50%, you must first plan the infrastructures to support these people, you must plan the schools and the healthcare, but most of all you must plan the transport, for the transport system ties everything else together. We have discussed the need to get people out of their cars by providing good public transport, but this must be planned in before the houses are built. If not, people would just get back in their cars and in places like Berkhamsted and Tring this will cause gridlock. These plans are incomplete, they have failed to address some of the most basic needs of the town and to ask public to consult on such a plan would be an insult to our voters. What do we expect them to say? Where are the roads? Where are the schools? Where is the healthcare? To publish a plan without addressing these needs is a dereliction of duty. When we were told to review a document where critical information was missing, he felt that we were being treated in contempt, and that the process was not being taken seriously.  If we now publish this document for review we are telling our voters that we treat them with contempt, we treat them as fools and that their opinion is not valid. Therefore he asked councillors to vote to reject this consultation at this time and tell our voters we are their servers, not their masters.

Councillor England said first of all we need more properly affordable housing in Dacorum for the people on the waiting list. He looked through the document and couldn’t find a mention of the waiting list. Second of all, we’re in a position of needing to consult on one of the most important but incomplete documents over Christmas and in the middle of a lockdown. This must be a historically poor choice of time to do a complex consultation, and this is the only chance to change things. As Councillor Tindall has already said, section 19 is not a creative opportunity, it is a take it or leave it. Why is there an urgency at Westminster and why in the Cabinet? Why for anyone of us who actually votes for this draft plan to go to consultation, what is the justification for the urgency. Any delay caused by the government could not put DBC at risk, surely? MP Gagan Mohindra says he wants to get going with the consultation but Hemel isn’t ready, MP Mike Penning hasn’t even commented to his knowledge, and neither is the plan ready. Notwithstanding the uncertainty about administrative housing communities and local government plans, the government is recommending continued work on local plans, but Dacorum is just at that particular stage. The point at which the public is to be consulted and can actually change things, which makes this a nonsense. It’s a nonsense to carry on working on a plan and putting it through the rigmarole of a consultation when there is so much that can change. Surely the ministry recommendation applies more to preparatory work on options and not the crucible that we’re in now. He referred to paragraph 3.7 in the report to cabinet and felt it was a curious statement. It quoted ‘the development of the local plan is being informed by various evidence studies. Key documents are listed in appendix 3. Many of the studies have reached an advanced stage but are still in draft form. These will be finalised and published in due course. Finalisation of this background evidence work is not crucial at this stage in the process but will be essential when the local plan is finalised.’ So that’s saying that this information is not critical for the public but it’s essential when the plan is finalised. How can those two things be reconciled? This is disrespectful to the public. They’re being given the chance to change the plan but without all the information, information which we say ourselves is going to be essential when we come to the end. He had sympathy for what Councillor Symington was saying about delaying the consultation but he felt that consultation was a good thing and asked if the Leader would give a commitment to allow a repeat section 18 consultation if the government moves the goal post on housing by more than 10%? If not, he would vote against the consultation. There is too much uncertainty as to make this consultation if it is the only change to change things, feel premature and likely unsound. One final thought, for a plan which represents the 27% gross just in Hemel, let alone Tring at 55%, he would want the council to provide a local plan to sustainably meet the current housing list.

Councillor Pringle said she was speaking on behalf of the residents in Northchurch and all of Dacorum because these proposed draft plans are going to have an enormous effect on the character of our area. Northchurch residents in particular are really concerned that what they have always understood to be recognised as a rural village is now being treated as an urban area and an extension of Berkhamsted and actually a significant proportion of the proposed development in Berkhamsted is actually falling in Northchurch. Furthermore it’s described as the urban area of Northchurch but it is actually country fields at the moment. This is quite a shocking revelation for our residents that this is even being proposed and therefore I am absolutely certain that all my residents in Northchurch will want to have a full say and those residents are very diverse in their backgrounds, ages and abilities. At the moment we are in lockdown and there are limitations of trying to communicate effectively through I.T. Only people who have desktop computers will be able to properly scrutinise this and we need to think of the number of people who rely only on a phone; they won’t even be able to read the local plan, and then there are of course many people who don’t own a computer at all; many of those are elderly and disabled. She felt this local plan excluded significant proportions of people and highlighted that over 1200 residents of Dacorum had signed a petition seeking an extension or a postponement on this plan because of lockdown and Christmas. If those residents were prepared to sign a petition they will also be prepared to judicially review whether the consultation was actually valid. She echoed the words of colleagues and thanked officers for the hard work that they had put in to this local plan, and the last thing our officers at DBC need is to deal with the complex judicial review based on the fact that this was launched during lockdown and that may well be something that people will seek to pursue given the number of people that are observing tonight’s meeting. It would seem to be a flawed decision to go ahead with consultation at this time regardless of the merits of the plan, knowing that later on perhaps sometime further in the process, this could be subject to legal challenge. There’s a very good case for postponing this plan and whilst postponed there is opportunity to look at the comments made by other councillors earlier and to look at the figures from the Office of National Statistics, the infrastructure problems regarding transport and to actually think about how we might take this forward.

Councillor Uttley referred to the algorithms which was loosely mentioned earlier in the meeting. We have heard how the figure does not reflect the ONS figures but ironically the algorithm does use the latest ONS projections. The average expected growth from 2020-2030 is 355 homes per year and this is used as a starting point, however after this an affordability adjustment is applied to the figure which is calculated from affordability figures in each area from 2009-2019. For Dacorum this results in an adjustment factor of 2.6; 355 homes is multiplied by 2.6 to get our number of 922. Whilst she shared some of the concerns voiced by the Leader regarding the need for a plan to be in place, she was more concerned that this proposed consultation will not in essence be a genuine, meaningful consultation. The local plan document itself is 370 pages and there are several other accompanying documents, some of which, as mentioned, are not finalised. For example the strategic design guide,  the detailed design guide, trees and woodlands policy, local transport plan, South West Herts housing needs assessment and sustainable transport strategy, to name just a few. Whilst videos and email information is welcome, it is difficult to see how our plan, amounting to several hundred, possibly over one thousand pages, can be properly reviewed, digested, and understood by the public as it stands. She echoed Councillor Pringle’s comments regarding the safety of this consultation.  

Councillor Freedman said a lot of his points had been covered well by his colleagues. He highlighted that the petition mentioned earlier had received 1,249 signatures in three days so it showed the local feeling on the issue and it had only been publicised in smaller groups. He gave respect to the officers that had produced this plan but felt in order to fully appreciate the work they put into it they should feel that at least some of the members would be justifying this plan to the public. If we go to consultation and absolutely no one on council has got a voice saying we actually want this plan, which it sounded like from what the Leader was saying earlier he almost hopes that the plan goes to the public and gets rejected, I worry that officers won’t feel particularly fulfilled. He said he wouldn’t be supporting the consultation as he believed we want to have something that is certain enough that members of the public will feel that they are having meaningful consultation on it and that DBC is listening to what they say.

Councillor Suqlain Mahmood said he had listened to the speakers so far and noticed a few contradictions. Firstly someone had said there was not enough time to publicise the consultation but judging by the number of emails received, the petition people have mentioned and those observing tonight I don’t think the argument stands. He felt we should proceed with the consultation and gave a few reasons why. He felt it gauged public opinion from the outset. This is a consultation and not a done deal. Consultation will invite scrutiny from the public and the fact that this is so well publicised already will help when the council start publicising through Dacorum Digest etc. and then it is up to the public whether they provide feedback or not. He said Councillor England made reference to the long waiting list for housing and felt the policy did address that if you read between the lines as it refers to 35% more affordable housing which we desperately need in the borough. It also gives hope to the young people whether they live in the villages or urban centres like Hemel Hempstead, they deserve to think about their future and to live in a house in a village and we need to help them get on to the housing ladder. We are going out hopefully with the worst case scenario which will invite people’s views and opinions and then we go in to the second phase when the detailed plan is developed. He felt members had made some good points today and hopefully these points will be picked up by officers. Revising a consultation after having so much feedback is easier to do than to wait around, we don’t know how long Covid-19 will be around so what we need to do as a council is carry on with our business and proceed with this consultation. He said we all voted to address the climate emergency and the beauty of this plan it is addresses a reduction in carbon emissions and by 2030 our houses are going to be carbon neutral. We shouldn’t stop the consultation of a policy because of threats of legal challenges or action, we should go ahead and give our youths a future. He finalised by saying he fully supported the consultation.

Councillor Hollinghurst was fully in favour of deferring the consultation because there are far too many unknowns. The consultation follows the same pattern as previous ones which in his opinion historically were flawed. They end up being developer driven. They may not be designed to do that but that’s how they always turn out because built into the process there are always paused points and at these there is a call for additional sites. So it’s guaranteed, the imaginative developers are going to come forward with more sites and even if you reject the majority of them you’ll still end up with a few. Not only that, once a site has been put forward it is vulnerable to development from that point on and that’s what he means by developer driven. He said at least twice in briefings and discussions in council meetings during this process he’s heard it said that HCC say they need more schools. He found that difficult to understand and believe, we don’t build the houses to fill up schools requested by another authority. You build the schools to cater for the families in the houses that you feel are needed and the extra schools are contingent on the planned housing numbers, not the other way round. These numbers are being questioned, we’re going to write and express our concerns to the ministers in the government and local MP’s. That particular point hits Tring and Berkhamsted hard, they’ve got at least one extra school that we don’t need in the equation, in his opinion. There is so much uncertainty around, nobody knows. Let’s wait until the fog clears. At the risk of being unpopular, we’ve got another very large uncertainty looming on the horizon, for better or for worse, like it or not, we have chosen as a nation to move the focus of our trade, our endeavour and our development from facing south and east to facing west. That will affect the whole pattern of our business activities and hence the whole pattern of housing settlements. It’s going to shift the pattern of our trade towards the Atlantic and that will have its effect on London and on housing demand in areas like this and we haven’t got a clue how that’s going to pan out. It might be nonsense but we don’t know. It is only prudent that we put this back for 3-6 months or however many months it takes, to get a better situation with Covid-19 and it gives us time to get people to rethink those numbers.

Councillor Hearn said she had listened carefully to the Leader justifying going forward with the consultation now and felt that if we’re going to build a defence which demonstrates to the government that we cannot back their current requirements and we must provide evidence to support this claim. If during the consultation period the government comes forward with a lower requirement then this would be welcome and the council’s requirements can be amended. As Councillor for Tring East I am certain that residents will in vast number oppose the current proposals to construct such a large number of houses. Remember, Tring is a small historic market town surrounded by Greenbelt on the edge of Chiltern Hills. Tring voices will be heard whenever the consultation takes place.

Councillor Bhinder sought reassurance from officers or Councillor Williams that if there is information missing or things which aren’t complete that this won’t be picked up by the inspectorate and the consultation potentially being void.

Councillor Anderson said this was obviously going to be a very controversial subject which would exercise minds and hearts considerably. In his ward of Kings Langley it is the number one issue, they had a village poll on the subject and out of 2,000 voters only 13 voted for Greenbelt development and everyone else voted against. It is extremely controversial and he asked that people don’t think that anybody proposing we proceed is somehow in favour of developing on Greenbelt as that couldn’t be further from the case. As a veteran of at least four local plans he didn’t accept that the planning documents are any less complete than usual, contrary to the claims that have been made so far. He made the point that this isn’t the last consultation in the process, there are further steps and consultations to undergo and if the situation changes then the plan will change. It’s not set in stone. He understood the concerns that members, particularly new members, have in relation to the number of emails that we’ve all received in the last few days but at the end of the day when it comes to spatial planning process all those emails and even this debate counts for absolutely nothing to the process. What we need is people to participate in a consultation to make their views known so that we have the solid evidence to strengthen our case. In terms of proceeding when we’re not certain about the numbers he suggested there is always going to be doubt and in some respects we’re in this situation because we delayed this for quite a number of years. At some point you have got to draw a line in the sand and proceed irrespective of the complaints that have been made in the debate thus far, in his view we needed to proceed and gather than evidence. He didn’t feel it was disrespectful or undemocratic to ask the public what they think, in fact it would be the other way round. If we denied the public a say in the emerging local plan then that is being undemocratic and disrespectful. We’re taking the unusual step of extending the consultation which isn’t how the process should be followed and he didn’t suspect anybody was going to try and mount a legal challenge off the back of that. If we keep putting things off in the hope they might get better then we run the risk of things getting worse. It is a very delicate situation. He fully understood the objections that people have as he shares the view, he joined the council 20 years ago to fight Greenbelt development and will always do what he can to prevent it. He fully supported proceeding with the consultation and agreed with the comments of the Leader.

Councillor Banks recalled a conversation with a resident many years ago about how she would support no new house building, protect Greenbelt, ensure we had a new hospital, plenty of schools and the infrastructure we needed to live a green and healthy lifestyle here in Dacorum and she still stands by those principles. The resident replied ‘where will your children live?’ and that question floored her. Inevitably there’s going to have to be some house building on green space and although she supported many of the negative comments from members she felt that the democratic process should be followed and we should go to consultation so people could be heard.

Councillor Allen picked up on Councillor Hearn’s point that if the numbers are reduced it can be fed in to later iterations of the plan and felt that the concern was a lot of the development is on Greenbelt and once it has gone out in a public document saying that certain Greenbelt is to be deregulated then it is very difficult to put that genie back into the bottle. This is particularly in a climate in which the algorithm that the government has used favours building in the south of England, and particularly in desirable rural parts such as Tring, Berkhamsted and Kings Langley. The concern there is that once these areas ripe for development are out there, developers are going to prefer to build on those areas where the profit is going to be greater for them than in other areas where we need affordable housing. He didn’t support this portfolio proposal on the basis that we should not release Greenbelt in a public document until we know we have to.

Councillor Griffiths stressed that she didn’t think there was one single member of this council in favour of these figures and felt that was the premise we needed to start from. We are all against building on the Greenbelt. Having been a councillor for a while it’s important to stress that everything starts with evidence and we need that evidence. She hoped the numbers would be reduced by government but we have to go with what we have today otherwise we will never to go consultation. If guidelines change it can be fed into the process as we go along. We will never have complete information because by definition, when you have the complete information you’ve adopted the plan. There will always be uncertain information because the world is a moving place, things will keep happening, how long will we delay for? We cannot put the plan on hold because we will get speculative developers. As far as putting Greenbelt in to the public domain, these Greenbelt developments that developers have already land banked this land, they will be pushing for it whether we put it in the open plan or not. This is a legal document, we need to make sure we’re following a legal process and we need to make sure that it stays as up to date as it possibly can otherwise we will lose appeals when it goes to the planning inspector. Lockdown is supposedly ending on 2 December and this consultation doesn’t start until 27 November and runs through to the beginning of February. That is a much longer period than normal which she welcomed. She requested that everyone that’s involved in this meeting tonight talks about the consultation, speaks to all the group they know within Dacorum and feeds into the consultation. We need the evidence. She was thinking about future generations, we all have families in this borough and care about this borough. We could still have a legal challenge if we deferred this consultation. We need to show we’ve done everything right and done the best we can, step by step.

The Mayor invited Councillor Williams to sum up before a vote was held.

Councillor Williams said he fully accepted that this wasn’t a black and white subject and it’s quite emotive from people who have strong views one way or the other. He omitted to say, regarding the transport and infrastructure studies that were mentioned, there is the intention to have those reports for Berkhamsted and Tring sustainable transport strategy which both town councils have been involved with, a draft infrastructure delivery plan which will set out detailed requirements for new infrastructure and the cost of such. These will be available next Friday for the start of the consultation. He felt Councillor Freedman may have misinterpreted his comments earlier in the meeting, suggesting the consultation was to seek to prove that we have got something we don’t want. He believed there was a misconception that maybe councils are fully in control of this process but those that have been involved with planning for a number of years will realise that the planning system in this country is very top down and these numbers are handed to us. Potentially one of the consequences of the current consultation on planning is that these numbers won’t be something the council can skirt around or be advisory, they’re going to be compulsory for each authority. We’ve talked a lot about ONS figures but they’re not what the government is adopting as its number requirement. As mentioned before, they’re very much committed to their manifesto pledge for 300,000 homes a year and that produces very high numbers, and there’s no guarantee that even with the algorithm being reworked that our numbers will come down. He agreed with lots of comments about affordability and the council has championed building council houses. We’ve worked hard to retain our stock and are one of the very few councils who builds houses to social rent rather than affordable rents. He agreed that the definition of affordable rents is wide and in his view, in areas such as this where housing is expensive, isn’t really affordable but we can only work within the legislation the government puts forward. He reassured members that this was a genuine consultation to seek our resident’s views. We will make sure the consultation is very well publicised as we need to do that to get maximum return on it. We will come under pressure to deliver housing and from developers. He has seen the petition that has been mentioned and it is very well intended but it does make assumptions which are not correct. This plan contains excellent work by officers and members and seeks to deliver and demonstrate what the effect on Dacorum would be by delivering to the current governments housing requirements. The evidence we’re putting forward is that we can deliver that but it has a consequence for our communities, for our borough, and we want to share that with our residents and get their feedback. It will support us if we, at some point, feel the government hasn’t reduced our numbers, the algorithm hasn’t changed and we want to go to an inquiry with a plan through regulation 19 consultation. We did that last time with our current plan. He didn’t believe that our consultation would fail a legal challenge, it is a robust consultation and even if we wait several months it is unlikely that we would be in a position to hold those sorts of face to face, public meetings. We have many avenues to consult our residents and he believed we will get a firm and robust consultation and that is necessary to strengthen our argument if we are to achieve the best outcome for the long term plan for Dacorum. He appreciated that this was something members will find difficult to come to a view on and he accepted both sides of the argument. He urged members to support the recommendation to go out to consultation.

Councillors England, McDowell and Taylor requested that a recorded vote was held.

A recorded vote was held:

For: Adeleke, Anderson, Banks, Barrett, Bassadone, Beauchamp, Bhinder, Birnie, Durrant, Elliot, Griffiths, Guest, Hearn, Imarni, Maddern, Mahmood (Sobaan), Mahmood (Suqlain), Peter, Riddick, Rogers, Silwal, Sinha, G Sutton, R Sutton, Timmis, Williams, Wyatt-Lowe (27)

Against: Allen, Barry, Claughton, England, Freedman, Hobson, Hollinghurst, Link, McDowell, Pringle, Ransley, Stevens, Symington, Taylor, Tindall, Townsend, Uttley, Woolner (18)

Abstain: Mayor (1)

Therefore the decision was agreed.

 

8.6       CA/091/20       Car Parking Supplementary Planning Document

Decision

That the draft SPD is adopted.

 

8.7       CA/092/20       Herts Growth Board – Section 101 Committee

Decision

(1)   Agree to the establishment of the Hertfordshire Growth Board Joint Committee and Hertfordshire Growth Board Scrutiny Joint Committee and delegate such functions to the committees as set out in the annexed Hertfordshire Growth Board - Integrated Governance Framework and annexed Terms of Reference and Standing Orders for each committee.

(2)  Adopt the Hertfordshire Growth Board - Integrated Governance Framework into the Councils own constitutional framework and delegate authority to the Assistant Director, Corporate and Contracted Services to make any required changes to the Council’s constitution to give effect to the Governance Framework.

 

(3)  Agree that the Council’s nominated representative on the Hertfordshire Growth Board Committee shall be Councillor Andrew Williams as Leader of the Council and the approved substitute shall be Councillor  Margaret Griffiths as Deputy Leader

 

(4)   Delegate authority to the Leader of the Council to nominate the Council’s representative on the Hertfordshire Growth Board Scrutiny Joint Committee and approved substitute.