Welwyn Hatfield Planning Analysis

The inspector’s decision regarding the BioPark wasn’t a surprise to many. The developer had provided a proposal that conformed to the rules as laid down by Welwyn Hatfield Council over the last twelve years.

It left little for the Council to refuse when faced with the planning proposal, but what it did do was open residents’ eyes to what has been slipped past them over the last decade.

It all starts with a local plan built on shoddy foundations.

The initial emerging district plan as it was known was little more than a plan to expand the two towns with whatever the housing requirement would be; leaving the villages both large and small untouched.

Hatfield was to get the lion’s share of the the houses with slightly less in Welwyn Garden City. This was a political decision favouring the Conservative voters in the villages and westside Welwyn Garden City against, at the time, the mostly Labour voters in Hatfield.

The policies reflected this; encouraging denser flats to “infill” brownfield sites in the towns.

Fast forward nearly a decade and Welwyn Hatfield finally submitted a what was now called a Local Plan. This had changed slightly: now there was limited development in some of the villages – although Brookmans Park managed to avoid this by creating its planning area so large that any development a few miles away would be classed as being built in the village.

Due to the plan taking so long to develop and submit the amount of housing required kept rising. To combat this the Conservative council had the idea of building up… very high up to the point that a neighbouring site to the Biopark (known as the Shredded Wheat site) was granted up to nine stories high.

It eventually reached a point that when a stand-alone village in the middle of the greenbelt (Symondshyde) was offered up to be sacrificed it was fully supported by the Conservative council as it meant they finally had (on paper at least) nearly the number of homes required.

Now began the process of having the Local Plan double-checked by the Government inspector.

Unsurprisingly, one of the first things challenged was the shortfall of required housing. The reality was that a professional company had given their analysis of the requirement and the Conservative council had instead picked a lower arbitrary number, one that felt better to them as it fit with their idea of the amount needed. Not based on any research whatsoever but a number that looked good on paper.

While the inspector went about checking other parts of the plan he sent the Council away to conduct research to justify the shortfall in required housing. There was also a period to allow the council to modify the plan so this went hand in hand.

However the Conservative council had other ideas. They again submitted a lower figure than required although they were now under further pressure as the Labour opposition had removed the stand-alone village at Symondshyde but there was no proposed increase to the numbers in any of the borough’s villages.

It is important to note that by this point the Conservative council had lost some of their seats in westside Welwyn Garden City thanks to good campaigning from the Liberal Democrats. They would do anything to protect their voter base in the villages – anything else would be political suicide.

The inspector once again rejected the Conservative council’s submission but this time allowed for a two-stage plan to be put forward. Build less now and make it up later.

Welwyn Hatfield Council now had the longest running local plan in history at a cost of over £9 million.

The Conservative council had one more chance to get this right.

So, in a move quite unforeseen, the Conservative council re submitted it’s original numbers and sites for building. A plan that the inspector had already determined would not be acceptable.

Conservative planning for Welwyn Hatfield has been a disaster.

The blame is solely theirs: they can’t blame the inspector for referring to their policies or their original plan. They can’t blame central government for changing national policies because policies change and develop with time: if the Local Plan had been agreed even five years ago we would have a plan to work with and as national policies get updated they would be incorporated into the next iteration of the Plan.

Submitting plans including figures well below the professionally predicted amount not just once but three times brings to mind the famous Einstein definition of insanity: “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

If the inspector decides that the final below par submitted plan and figures are not acceptable then Welwyn Hatfield will be subject to planning on appeal which is exactly what the Bio park is an example of.

No place in the Borough will be safe: no town, village or greenbelt site. All will be up for grabs.