Lib Dems delay Local Plan again - 14,000 to be built mostly on Green Belt

Conservatives on Three Rivers District Council called an Emergency Full Council meeting on Tuesday the 7th of January 2025 to debate and vote on turbocharging the Council's Local Plan so it could be submitted before Labour's National Planning Policy Framework comes into force on the 12th of March 2025.

Three Rivers has been working on their Local Plan since 2017. In December 2023, under pressure from the Conservatives, they agreed to adopt a 'low growth option' that saved large parts of the Green Belt from development. However, despite pleas and warnings by Conservative Councilors progress on the Local Plan once again stalled. 

Labour's victory in the General Election in July 2024, gave the Liberal Democrats at the Three Rivers months of notice to get their Local Plan submitted before Labour introduced their anti-Green belt development agenda. Where other authorities across the country sped up the work on their local plans, the Liberal Democrats in Three Rivers voted in an October Local Plan Sub Committee to halt work altogether. On the 10th December 2024 Full Council they forced through, with the support of Labour and Green Councilors, to again push their target of submitting the local plan to November 2025.

Labour's new framework means that Three Rivers would be forced to build over 14,000 homes, mostly on the Green Belt.

Labour published their National Planning Policy Framework just before Christmas but it was only to be enforced from the 12th of March 2025. This means that plans submitted before that date would be assessed under the old more pro-Green Belt framework of the last Conservative Government. This spurred Conservative Councilors to demand an Emergency Full Council to debate and vote on the Council putting more resources behind the Local Plan to get it submitted before the 12th of March deadline.

Following a spirited debate, the Liberal Democrats supported once again by Labour and the Greens refused to invest in the Local Plan and marched ahead with their new November 2025 submission target.

Leader of the Three Rivers Conservative Group, Cllr Cooper said that changes to government planning policy meant it would be “disastrous” not to submit a plan by the March deadline. He said the council had previously assumed it would only have until 12 January to submit a Plan under the old policy. But the new deadline, he said, meant the council could “do the [legally required] Regulation 19 consultation … get the extra work done, and get it submitted to the planning inspector to protect our green belt”.

He added it meant the council would then not be subject to the government’s new housing targets for five years during which time “a lot can change”. “All through this process, we’ve been told February or March was possible. “Years and years of work should not be thrown away just to end up having to throw ourselves at the mercy of [housing secretary] Angela Rayner’s 14,977 homes.”