MEMORANDUMDate: 11 FEBRUARY 2005

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To:All Members of the County CouncilFrom: County Secretary’s

All Chief Officers Department

Ask For: Nicola Hayden

Cc:Environment Officers)Ext: 25560

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SPECIAL MEETING OF THE ENVIRONMENT SCRUTINY COMMITTEE

9 FEBRUARY 2005

ATTENDANCE

MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE

S A Batson, M V Bayes (Vice-Chairman), N K Brook (substituting for H M Saunders), R N Copping, D J Drake, S E Jones, R Roberts, W A Storey (substituting for R S Clements), C J White (Chairman), B A York

Also present:

Executive Members:D A Ashley (Environment)

M H T Janes (Partnerships)

Other Members:D E Billing, F W Clayton, M D Colne, A D Dodd, A K Gray, L R Kercher, S Newton, P A Ruffles, S Quilty, I Simpson, R J Smith, J W A Usher

PART 1 (OPEN BUSINESS)

1DRAFT EAST OF ENGLAND PLAN PUBLIC HEARING

[Officer Contacts:John Wood, Director of Environment
Tel: 01992 555200
David Moses, Head of Scrutiny
Tel: 01992 555300
Jan Hayes-Griffin, Assistant Director (Strategy)
Tel: 01992 555203
Jon Tiley, Head of Forward Planning
Tel: 01992 556292]

1.1As members of the East of England Regional Assembly Councillors C J White and B A York declared a personal interest and, in accordance with the Code of Conduct, remained in the meeting.

1.2Following widespread concern about the requirement within the draft East of England Plan for Hertfordshire to supply 79,600 houses by 2021, Members agreed to hold a public hearing to give Hertfordshire residents an opportunity to discuss these issues.

A letter was sent to a range of organisations and the local press inviting people to attend the hearing and send in written contributions.

David Moses, Head of Scrutiny, introduced a report that summarised the written statements received from local organisations, which in turn provided the Committee with valuable evidence around which to base discussions. It was noted that these organisations had also been invited to present their statements orally at the meeting.

1.3The Committee heard from Alan Moore, Head of Regional Planning and Transportation, EERA, and Brian Stewart, Chief Executive, EERA who gave a presentation summarising what the East of England Plan would mean for Hertfordshire. They advised people that copies of the plan could be obtained from either the EERA website ( or by writing to EERA at Flempton House, Flempton, Nr. Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, IP28 6EG

1.4The Committee then heard from the following organisations who provided their views with regards to the proposals within the plan:

The Harpenden Green Belt Association

North Mymms District Green Belt Association

The London Green Belt Council

The CASE (Campaign Against Stevenage Expansion) Organisation

Luton and District Association for the Control of Aircraft Noise

Three Valleys Water

Hertfordshire Chamber of Commerce

Buntingford Civic Society

Hertford Civic Society

Parsonage Residents Association

Countryside for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE)

STOP Harlow North Campaign

Each speaker was given five minutes to present their views and comments to the Committee and members were given the opportunity to ask questions of individual speakers.

1.5The afternoon session began with a public debate facilitated by Tom Heap, BBC News Rural Affairs Correspondent, at which members of the public were given the opportunity to discuss their views and put questions to the Committee and EERA.

1.6Following a short break, Tony Travers, Director of the Greater London Group, a research centre at the London School of Economics, was invited to summarise the main points raised by EERA and the speakers in the morning session and by the public during their debate.

He began by outlining EERA’s proposals to balance demands for large numbers of new homes with the need to provide the necessary infrastructure and protection of the Green Belt.

He noted that the East of England Plan argues there has been insufficient house building and control within the East of England in recent years, especially in terms of affordable housing and that the current ratio of house prices:earnings is 8.4:1. He concluded that EERA’s final point was that the plan is an attempt to balance demands being made on the East of England (including Hertfordshire) because of its popularity amongst businesses and residents with the need to protect its beauty, natural resources and existing quality of life.

Tony Travers then went on to summarise the key points that were made by the invited speakers during the morning session and in doing so he identified a number of key issues:

-scepticism with regards to forecasting demands twenty years in the future;

-it would be a challenge to provide the number of houses proposed by EERA, but the need for more affordable housing was recognised;

-general support for the idea of attempting to shift economic growth towards the North of England;

-significant concern expressed with regards to the overloading of roads (including rat-running), inadequate train services and any potential water shortages;

-lack of Government commitment to invest in infrastructure;

-powerful support for the absolute protection of the Green Belt;

-powerful opposition for the impact that expansion of Luton and Stansted Airports would have on road congestion and noise pollution;

-acknowledgement that 60% of any potential development would take place on brownfield sites, but a belief that the remaining 40% of any potential development would have to take place within the Green Belt;

-a conflict between the needs of existing Hertfordshire residents and future Hertfordshire residents;

-the identification of London as a ‘warm’ neighbour, and concern as to whether the London Plan was significantly ambitious enough to contain London growth?

He then concluded his summary of the morning session by noting that the Hertfordshire Chamber of Commerce had made a number of different points, namely:

-that there is a real housing shortage in Hertfordshire that needs to be addressed ( a view also expressed by CPRE);

-that the current economic prosperity enjoyed by Hertfordshire could not be taken for granted as it is more fragile than many people assume; and

-that much of the evidence presented to the Committee had concentrated on problems and not identified any solutions.

With regards to the public debate, the main issues that Tony identified were:

-strong views as to the difficulty of public accessibility of the plan, and a lack of an executive summary;

-differing views as to where the pressures for growth were coming from and if the number of new homes needed would be the same without in-migration?

-scepticism over the official view expressed with regards to possible water shortages;

-the need for both soft and hard infrastructure (schools, hospitals etc as well as transport);

-an absolute belief that any development must be contained with brownfield sites, but with the potential of ‘pepper-potting’ development of affordable housing (small scale development in areas where need is highest – e.g. villages);

-concern as to how large scale development north of Harlow and west of Stevenage would help with town centre regeneration;

-the need for the character of a ‘green and rural Herts’ to be 100% maintained by stopping widespread ‘sprawl’ and minimising house building.

In conclusion of his summary of the public debate Tony Travers highlighted the fact that the West Stevenage Consortium had expressed a variant view to the above as they believed that there was an arguable economic and sustainable case to support development west of Stevenage.

Finally, Tony closed his summary with a number of his own observations which included that he felt the East of England was a victim of its own success and that any shift in economic growth to the North could have a detrimental effect on funding the region receives from Central Government.

1.7Before Members debated the issues within the draft East of England Plan, the Chairman reminded all present that the Committee was not a decision-making body but that it could decide to make recommendations to the Executive or Chief Officers and that a report would be sent to the special meeting of the County Council on Tuesday 8 March 2005.

2.Conclusions

2.1The Committee thanked Tom Heap for his facilitation of the public debate, Tony Travers for his excellent summary, speakers for their presentations and members of the public for their contribution to a valuable and interesting debate.

2.2Following their own debate, the Committee:

(a) / acknowledged that the EERA plan is less of a concern in the south and west than in the north and east of the county;
(b) / agreed that EERA should have done a great deal more to inform and engage members of the public during their consultation on the plan. It was noted that SERA had produced a mailing containing an executive summary of their plan for every household within the South-East region and it was strongly felt that EERA should have adopted a similar approach.
In particular they felt that more effort should have been directed at trying to engage a younger population in the debate;
(c) / accepted the need for affordable housing targeted towards meeting the needs of the existing population;
(d) / agreed that any growth must be accompanied by the requisite funded infrastructure and expressed disappointment that the recent Transport Settlement did not make adequate provision for this.

2.3Recommendations to Cabinet

The Committee recommended:

(a) / that Cabinet should object to the plan on the following grounds:
  1. it is housing rather than economically driven;
  1. it is not clear where the funding for affordable housing will come from or that it meets the needs of rural communities;
  1. as the number of houses within the County Council’s own proposals would stretch the capacity of the infrastructure to its limit, any additional number of dwellings would not be sustainable and the ability to provide some of the transport infrastructure already needed, particularly the rail infrastructure serving Stevenage and Harlow is questionable;
  1. the EERA proposals place too large a requirement on green field development and there is a need to protect the green belt north of Harlow and the green field area west of Stevenage.
/ David Roberts

2.4There was a minority view that the Committee should recommend that Cabinet should broadly support the EERA plan because of its objectives of providing affordable and decent housing, to improve the quality of life for all, and on the basis that the period of the Plan might need to be extended so that sufficient resources for implementation become available.

2.5The Committee agreed that a report on this matter should be submitted to the County Council on 8 March 2005.

2.6The Committee agreed to issue a joint press release detailing the outcomes of the public hearing.

REPORTS TO COUNCIL

Public Hearing on the draft East of England Plan

Andrew Laycock, County Secretary

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env050209 EERA Hearing minutes