East Herts consultation on District Plan ‘Main’ modifications

Guidance and pointers

  1. Introduction and links to documents

This note looks to help steer you through the process of commenting on the Council’s ‘main’ modifications. These are needed to make its Pre-Submission version of the East Herts District Plan, on which public consultation took place between September and December 2016, ‘sound’.

The Council has provided a general ‘Main modifications consultation’ introduction, and a ‘how to’ guide called ‘Consultation Portal Guidance’ which walks you through how to register, access and make comment online. We have downloaded these to and created the web links above for easy access.

You are encouraged to use the online comment facility, but you can also email or send in your comment(s) but they must be made on this formal ‘Comment Form’

In Section 2 we examine the issue of ‘soundness’ which is the only criteria the Inspector will concern herself with when reviewing comments made. We also expand on the Consultation Portal Guidanceexplaining in more detail how tocomplete the submission process

Section 3suggests the main mods of relevance to Gresley Park. Section 4provides suggested pointersto help the Inspector determine that sites, such as East of Stevenage (EOS1) - Gresley Park, should be taken out of consideration. Please develop these in your own words.

The Inspector must consider all comments made and determine whether each are relevant to her consideration of the Plan and its soundness. After this final round of consultation, no further representations can be made prior to the issue of her Report, unless the Inspector so requests. It is important therefore that all relevant considerations are posted at least once through this round of consultation to ensure that any prospective process or legal challenge is not frustrated.

  1. Guidance on how to address the issue of ‘soundness’ and make your submission
  2. Soundness:Before you can make your comment(s) on each Main modification you will be asked to assess whether you consider the Plan is legally compliant and that the modification will make the Plan ‘sound’. Soundness is measured by the following criteria:
  • Positively prepared: the Plan should be prepared based on a strategy which seeks to meet the objectively assessed development and infrastructure requirements, including unmet requirements from neighbouring authorities where it is reasonable to do so and consistent with achieving sustainable development;
  • Justified: the Plan should be the most appropriate strategy, when considered against reasonable alternatives, based on proportionate evidence;
  • Effective: the Plan should be deliverable over its period and based on effective joint working on cross-boundary strategic priorities; and
  • Consistent with national policy: the Plan should enable the delivery of sustainable development in accordance with the policies in the framework.
  • Register your details:If you didn’t do so in 2016, you must register your details before you can comment. To do so click on this link
  • Making your submission: This note assumes that you wish to comment on the Gresley Park location. This is provided within Chapter 12 of the Plan. There are four Main modifications on which you can comment. For convenience, we suggest you make all your comments under MM/12/001. You can of course comment on others. Here are the steps you need to take to comment on each Main modification.
    1. Login to
    2. Select the ‘open’ consultation page
    3. Click on the 'Read and comment on document' Arrow
    4. Click on '2 Proposed modifications' and page down to Chapter 12
    5. Click on 'Add comments'. This will open upthe comment boxes. First you need to complete the Yes/No tick boxes.
    6. Add your comment(s) in the first ‘Comment’ box and then add what needs to be done to make the Plan sound in the next comment box. Guidance on this and point 5 are provided inSection 4.
    7. If you have many comments you can upload a composite letter or document but please link that to each respective MM number.
    8. Save for later update & submission, or submit your final comment(s)
  1. Main modifications of relevance to Gresley Park

Here are the Main modifications (MMs) we currently consider to be most relevant. PACE will look to use these as coat-hangers in making its comments. You may however may wish to comment via MM/12/001.

MM/3/001Identifies the total housing need (OAN) for the District at 18,458. The supply side shows an excess of 450 dwellings. This OAN assumes that 500 dwellings will be built primarily within eight Category 1 Village between now and 2033. The Council in its Authority Monitoring Review report (AMR), issued on 29th January 2018, notes that 391 have been approved by September 2017, leaving a residual unidentified supply gap of 109. This is supported by MM/A/02 (Appendix B – Strategy Worksheet) of the Plan. PACE will look to challenge thisand suggest the excess of 450 will be materially higher.
The challenge is supported by recent researchpublished by Ian Mulheirn, Director of Consulting at Oxford Economics, former HMG Think-Tank Member and HM Treasury economist. In that he advises that if OAN ‘housing-need’ targets were updated with current Office of National Statistics (ONS) data we would see one million fewer people in England in 2031 than previously expected. (The primary drivers of the change are half-a-million fewer births and almost 400,000 more deaths than expected). This suggests a 30% drop in household formations by 2031 (218,000 down to 150,000) compared to the Government’s current projections used for the purposes of this Plan.
The implication of Ian Mulheirn’s research, as it potentially affects Gresley Park, and the whole of East Herts is that the demand side equation is likely to be significantly overstated, as it does not reflect the 30% fewer household formations now expected in England by 2031. If East Hertfordshire were similarly to update its household supply figures to reflect this, and its latestPlanning application and other data, a significant excess of supply will be evident. PACE will argue that the release of EOS1 (Gresley Park) and other questionable sites should now be actively considered by the Inspector in her Report to the Council.

MM/3/009This proposes that the annual shortfall of dwellings built since 2011 (1,790) should be made good in the next 10 years. This takes the annual completion target from 839 to 1018 over that period.

MM/3/011The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) advises that a 5% or 20% rolling buffer should be added to the annual build target if earlier completions have fallen behind that planned. This is to provide flexibility over the remaining Plan period. Over the next 5-yearperiod, the Council propose to use a 20% buffer. This will increase the first 5-year target from 1,018 to 1,222 dwellings p.a. – a total 6,110. Gresley Park is now acknowledged to take [at least] six years to build, with completion by March 2023.PACE will comment that the Council has acknowledged it has 6.2 years of supply to meet its first 5-year needs - equivalent to some 1,450 dwellings, thereby negating its original, 11th hour, assertion that Gresley Park was needed to meet its 5-year supply target.
Note: In its Delivery Statement,which was issued by the Council to support the inclusion of EOS1 in the pre-Submission consultation phase,Pidgeon Land Ltd. Said it would complete the development in four years starting in 2017.

MM/3/015The Council clearly cannot anticipate potential individual, developer or builders planning applications to build an individual home or small developments. East Herts therefore has made a ‘Windfall’ assumption based on earlier trends. It assumes that 75 dwellings will come forward each year. PACE will demonstrate, using recent trends demonstrated in the Council’s recently released AMR, that the Council is materially understating the volume of completions it is likely to achieve, and thus understating the excess.

MM/3/016 and MM/3/019These identify sites making up the total dwelling supply of 18,913, demonstrating the excess of some 450 over projected need. The text here is significant. Whilst arguing that some contingency is needed over the plan period, it comments … “The Plan provides a range of sites in different locations which means that it is not reliant on delivery at a single location. Flexibility could also be provided by accelerating the delivery of homes at the Gilston Area, thereby providing a greater amount of development within the Plan period …”. In addition, a footnote to the Table in MM/3/019 suggests that a further 500 dwellings may be allocated in North and East of Ware, subject to mitigations.

The opportunity to accelerate the potential 10,000 home development, referred to as the Harlow and Gilston Garden Town, a scheme with Government political and financial backing is significant: A small acceleration of this major potential development could further add to the current notional surplus of 450.

MM/10/02Advises that the 8 Group 1 Villages‘will accommodate at least 500 new homes between 2017-2033’. Appendix B identifies prior approval of 391 dwellings leaving just 109 to be delivered between now and 2033. PACE will argue the residual target of 109 is unduly pessimistic and that the Council’s notional surplus of 450 is likely again to be understated.

MM/12/01This is the main modification affecting Gresley Park. The wording has been strengthened from the development of ‘approximately’ 600 homes within the first five years to at least 600 homes over 6 years.

MM/12/02 and 03This covers the Masterplanning arrangements for Gresley Park. It sets out what is currently planned for inclusion in the site and consultation arrangements for its development. The Masterplan will be agreed prior to submission of any potential planning application(s). Stevenage Borough has now been added in as a formal consultee.

MM/12/004 provides a diagrammatic representation of the site – this is to be updated.

  1. Pointers for potential inclusion in your submission

The points below simply cover some key issues of relevance to this round of consultation, given the quasi-legal framework within which the process is conducted.If you have knowledge that supports / contradicts these,or can add to them, please message us asap, so we can advise supporters.
PACE is currently working with Council Officers to establish whether the Council’s estimate of dwelling supply is understated. If that proves to be the case, PACE will argue that sites, such as Gresley Park should be deleted from the Approved Plan. We will keep you advised on this important matter through our Facebook page, during the consultation period.

  • The updated provision within Chapter 12 (MM/12/001) remains unsound in that the Council has failed to identify any exceptional circumstance for specifically deleting Green Belt land to justify the EOS1 (Gresley Park) allocation within the Plan. Similarly, it has failed to evidence that all other reasonable options for meeting housing need have been ‘examined fully’, as required by the NPPF.
    Instead the Council relies on a contention that large scale release of Green Belt across the District provides a more sustainable approach and thereby provides a generic ‘exceptional circumstance’with relevance to each allocated site. We are not aware this this over-arching approach has been endorsed, on this scale, by any other planning Authority, or endorsed by the Courts, and could therefore be subject to challenge. (For more information on Protecting the Green Belt see HMG’s extract drawn from the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). )
  • EOS1 is developer led. It was included by the Council as a prospective location by the Authority, with no prior general public consultation, very late in the Plan development process. Its inclusion was determined by the Council only a matter of months prior to the issue for consultation of the Pre-Submission Planspecifically as the developer stated within its Delivery Statement that it was able to develop the site within, and therefore help deliver,the Council’s five-year supply target. A start on site of 2017 was then proposed with completion in four years. Contrary to assurances given by the Council during the Hearing sessions that the whole development would be completed within the first five years of the Plan that is now proven not to be deliverable: This is acknowledged by Council following release of its latest update of theStatement of Common Ground (ED 131), nominally dated 30th September 2017, and thelatest Authority Monitoring Report (AMR) published on 29th January 2018. The latter is supported by MM/A/02 - Appendix B (Strategy Worksheet) to the current Plan Consultation documentation.

In the light of the recently released AMR the Council accepts it has the equivalent of 6.2 years land supply to cover the first five years of the remaining Plan period – an excess of some 1,464 dwellings. The rational for the Council to include EOS1 in its initial Pre-Submission Plan no longer has validity.

We understand that PACE, working with the Council’s Officers is examining the Council’s assessed supply position for the whole Plan period. Currently acknowledged to show an excess of some 450 dwellings,PACE is likely to demonstrate this to be a material underestimate. If that is found to be the case it needs to be acknowledged, and excess sites and attendant release of Green Belt deleted from the final Plan. Failure to do so will question, indeed challenge the soundness of the Plan.

  • As presented, the proposed EOS1 development is not viable, and without major modification is unlikely to deliver the quantum of community benefits it espouses. It will be recalled that many respondents to the Section 19 Consultation, and others at the Hearing during Week 1, challenged the EOS1 delivery assumptions.
    That concern has subsequently been reinforced by the independent Hertfordshire Building Futures Design Review Panel. Its reportcomments, inter alia, that “A development of 600 homes is a modest size for a new neighbourhood, which in itself poses challenges. The Panel is of the view that a development of this scale would struggle to support local shops and services on its own … [it] has not yet demonstrated how it relates to the wider context of the town and countryside … [if] the development is to be successful it must be seen as an extension to Stevenage, not an isolated inward-looking suburb”
    The Report concludes as follows …

"The Panel considers that the site represents significant challenges due its sensitive location within the rural-urban interface and its severance from the wider town of Stevenage by Gresley Way. There are also key challenges surrounding the scale of development proposed and how this impacts on the viability of the neighbourhood centre, local shops and facilities …

… At this stage the Panel is of the view that the masterplan has not yet demonstrated how it responds to these significant challenges, and therefore cannot support the proposals in their current form."
Whilst the Council will no doubt suggest these concerns can be addressed through its masterplanning process, the issue of viability, without an increase in either the number of dwellings, density or both, are material matters that should be addressed through this consultation.

  • There is insufficient secondary school provision to accommodate the needs of potential students of Gresley Park (EOS1). In its MOU with East Herts Council (ED141), Stevenage Borough Council advise in para. 5.9. “that no additional capacity exists in Secondary schools within Stevenage, and no new provision was made within the Stevenage Borough Local Plan … to meet the needs of the Gresley Park development.” Inpara 5.10 it comments “Both Councils agree that the educational needs of the Gresley Park development will be provided within the Education Planning Area, which maybe delivered outside the existing urban area of Stevenage, as part of new development adjacent to the town”, and notes in Para 5.11. “Hertfordshire County Council objected to the Pre-Submission version of the North Hertfordshire Local Plan on the basis that the Council had not made sufficient provision for secondary education on land to the north of Stevenage.”
    Given the lack of agreement on how and where its potential secondary school students are to be accommodated, it would be inappropriate and irresponsible for the Council to progress EOS1 until this matter is resolved.

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PACE guidance/Feb2018/sms Page 1