It’s the last Nimby Watch of 2025. The taste of snow is in the air (probably). Santa is coming soon. How will we mark the occasion?
It’s Christmas! Have we found something suitably festive? A planning dispute over a reindeer enclosure, perhaps? There’s more than a week until Christmas and we’ve both still got work to do. So we’re in the winter wonderland that is… Potter’s Bar.
Oh come on, that’s not very Christmassy. Look, I’m sure they celebrate Christmas here. And it’s a perfectly nice place to live. It’s just outside the M25 – or at least the bit we’re looking at is – it’s got great transport links, and some people here have big plans.
You’re such a grinch. Fine, go on then, what’s being planned? New homes! A full 900 of them, to be precise, but – spoiler alert – planning has been denied.
Well, of course it has. It probably wouldn’t be very interesting if they’d allowed it. I’m sure they had good reasons, though: I bet there was no affordable housing, no local amenities and it was going to overload local roads. Funny you should say that, because… no. This might be the most obvious ‘yes’ of any planning scheme we’ve looked at all year.
Almost all of the homes were three- or four-bedroom family homes, exactly what everyone says they want. Fully half of them were going to be affordable, way ahead of the usual targets. A third of the site would be public green space.
Hmm, not bad, but surely that’s not the best we’ve heard? I wasn’t finished! There’s also space for shops, a children’s play area, sports pitches, a new primary school and a new care home. That’s a pretty impressive package, all things considered.
I’ll grant you that. There’s clearly a catch though. Was the land they wanted to use some kind of sacred burial ground? Or does it involve demolishing Stonehenge? So… yes, there’s a catch. But it’s a small one. The land technically qualifies as part of London’s green belt. But that doesn’t mean as much as it used to: the Government has said that given housing needs, lots of ‘green belt’ should be reclassified as ‘grey belt’, land of no particular beauty that doesn’t actually contribute to preventing sprawl.
So what does this particular land look like? Is it a nature reserve? It’s mostly a small-ish patch of farmland. It’s bounded by the M25 on one side, two main roads on the others, and it’s then on the south side of Potter’s Bar. It is hardly an unspoilt agricultural paradise, as the council’s planning officer made clear in their recommendations – they warned councillors this land would almost certainly not be classed as top-notch green belt on appeal.
Still, if it’s technically green belt you can see why some locals would object. They’ve had a long time to get used to the idea that ‘green belt’ means ‘untouchable’. And presumably there were lots of other options in the area for development, even if they weren’t as good? There certainly should have been. Councils are under an obligation to make sure there is land available for development to cover the next five years of housing demand – through their local plans and similar strategies.
Hertsmere Borough Council is nowhere near that goal – which is a minimum – having made available barely a year’s worth of land. That means its councillors have even less leeway than normal to refuse planning applications. Again, their officials took extensive legal advice and made them aware of this, too.
Let me check I’ve got this right: there’s a plan with lots of affordable homes, local amenities, that’s literally yards from the M25. It’s in a council that needs homes and has no plan to deliver them. They’ve been given legal advice that they should accept the plan, and their professional planning officials recommended it. And then… they said no. What gives?
Basically: councillors gonna council. The plan was rejected in a 9-3 vote, mostly because it involved building on the ‘green belt’ – though there was also an objection that the site was ‘too close’ to the M25, proving you really can never win. Everyone involved knows that when this is appealed the council will almost certainly lose. But that will take a long time, and something might come up in the meantime. So, they voted no anyway, because they could.
Well, now I’m in a terrible mood. I’m going to go and tell the kids that Christmas is cancelled. Look, before we ruin the season entirely, we can look for a silver (tinsel?) lining. Government keeps trying to fix this by half-measures, by trying to set out rules or guidance for councillors to make it silly to unreasonably refuse planning, without just grasping the nettle.
At least situations like this one make it clear. If we want lots of new homes, without endless delays and extra cost, the Government will have to take big swings. If we needed proof that trying to just tweak the existing system wouldn’t work, here it is. The evidence is there. Come the new year, it’s up to the Yimby faction to decide what to do with it.
Okay, fine, I’ll take it. What do I ask for in my letter to Santa, then? Same thing we put every year, my friend: wholesale planning reform. Merry Christmas and a Yimby new year.
