Local Plan consultation is as important as voting

Today: 20th September 2023. Last time St Albans Local Plan was compiled? 1994. That is 29 years ago. Bits have been updated in the mean time.

What of it? The Local Plan prescribes which areas different policies apply to. Some areas are designated as open space, some for housing, some for commercial development. Some areas are sites with special characteristics like rare plants or creatures.

St Albans Local Plan has gone through its first consultation - with local land owners - who have shown where they want to build or change use. We are now in the second consultation stage where local people and organisations get to comment on the draft plan. Interestingly much of the development sites requested have already been either revised or turned down (the documents provide two maps which illustrates this).

Why is reviewing the plan so important - as important in my view as electing our MP? We who live in the area have much more intimate knowledge about our environment and difficulties and benefits therein, than planners or remote land-owners. We often are members of specialist groups like the Ver River Society who probably know more about rare chalk streams than most. Comments on the local plan and how changes in it affect, for example, the Ver River should be influential in setting planning guidelines which is what the Local Plan is all about.

Other areas related to development are included in the Local Plan such as Transport. If more houses are built then the area needs the supporting infrastructure such as schools, surgeries, roads, parking, power supplies and sewerage connections with distribution networks capable of servicing the new demands.

In addition, risks are changing as weather patterns become more extreme and biodiversity is under greater threat than at any time probably since the ice age.

Housing and commercial developments should not be on flood plains - common sense - but then we thought that before the Grenfell criminality. Who thought inflammable cladding was ever a good idea or hiding the in-flammability was responsible business practice.

If we build so that insects can't feed or wild-life elements die out why ring our hands when later crops fail (no bees) or ants take over the garden (invasive species take over) and we are over-run with slugs (hedgehogs can't get from one garden to another or one area to another - missing green corridors between areas).

It isn't us oldies who will inherit all this mess but the young folk who sail through life like young folk do expecting great things. The only difference I can see is that my youthful anxiety was over nuclear weapons whereas chunks of youth now have underlying climate anxiety. Who can blame them.

Putting one's voice to critique at least one element of the proposed local plan before 5pm on Monday 25th September adds significantly to the 1,500 who already have. If you submit you will be heard. Sustainable St Albans, Friends of the Earth SA, CPRE and many others offer advice on how to respond. I have a video which contributes background and a way to submit comments easily.

The key to a submission is dispassionate objective comment not hand-wringing emotion - even if you feel emotional about a topic or proposal, like housing on a locally important wild-life habitat. We have a few days left - still time to submit at least one pithy thought.