Responding to news that the High Court have rejected St Albans Council’s appeal against the decision of the Planning Inspector to throw out their draft local plan, Oliver has urged the Council to use the opportunity to undertake a full review of the green belt so that all sites, including the Radlett rail freight terminal, can be considered for alternative bids.
The Planning Inspector from the Department for Communities & Local Government rejected the Draft Local Plan earlier this year for failing to meet the ‘duty to co-operate’ with its neighbours over identifying sites for new housing. Given this, Oliver now believes there is clearly a need for St Albans to look at alternative sites in order to meet its housing targets.
The call came in a letter to the Leader of St Albans Council, Cllr Alec Campbell.
Speaking last week, Oliver said: ‘I hope that the High Court’s decision will provide an opportunity for the Council to look again at its housing policy. In particular, in order to meet the housing targets set by the Government, St Albans will need to consider additional sites for housing and conduct a full green belt review to identify these.
‘One of the sites that I believe must be included within such a review is the proposed site of the freight terminal, given that outline planning permission has already been granted for this in spite of the existing green belt status.
‘As I established in Parliamentary Questions and a meeting with Cllr Campbell and the Planning Minister earlier this year, extant planning permission on a green belt site for nationally significant infrastructure does not preclude it being it included as part of a green belt review and subsequently made available for alternative bids, such as housing.
‘As I have always said, I do not want any development of this green belt land. But if it must be developed, it is ludicrous that the land can have planning permission for a rail freight terminal on it, but bids for desperately needed homes cannot be considered.
‘I would urge Cllr Campbell and St Albans to now consider this in order both to provide our community with those much needed new homes and to prevent the construction of an unnecessary freight terminal that would blight our precious countryside.’