Council approves 550-home L&G green belt development

One of the ‘golden rules’ for green belt development requires “at least 50% of the housing to be affordable, unless this would make the development of these sites unviable”.

The applicant has increased the affordable housing provision from 40% to 50% during the course of the application,” the council report said.

“Therefore, based on an affordable housing provision of 50%, the proposal would comply with ‘golden rule A’ of the NPPF.”

The site sits within the metropolitan green belt, which surrounds London and accounts for 31% of England’s total green belt.

An L&G spokesperson said: “We are pleased to have secured outline planning approval for our proposals for 550 new homes in Harpenden. There is an acute local need for more housing, including affordable housing, and this scheme will help address that. We look forward to working with the local authority and community as we progress our proposed development.”

Despite the approval, the development has been controversial since it was initially proposed.

In May 2023, Harpenden Town Council voted to “strongly object” to the application, arguing that there was insufficient justification for developing on the green belt, inaccurate transport assessments and it would cause unacceptable damage to ancient woodland.

A local group began a campaign named ‘Stop L&G’ in a bid to prevent the development from going ahead.

The group claimed the plans will have “a major detrimental impact on local residents”. This includes causing “significant levels of increased traffic on already over-congested major roads”, increasing the burden on health services and overwhelming “inadequate local sewerage infrastructure”.

The decision follows a House of Lords inquiry into the concept of grey belt land, which concluded earlier this month that it may now be “largely redundant” after the government made sweeping changes to other parts of planning policy.

Peers examining the government’s grey belt proposals found they had been “eclipsed by more significant changes” introduced in December, such as mandatory green belt reviews.