Government Gives Ignorant and Cynical Response to Hands Off Herts e-Petition

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 14th Sep 2007

Sandy Walkington, Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for St Albans, has expressed his outrage at "the ignorant and cynical way" in which the Government has purported to respond to the Hands Off Herts e-petition on the Downing Street website.

"1528 individuals signed the petition before it closed at the end of August," Sandy said. "In terms of public support it was easily in the top two percent of all the petitions on the Prime Minister's site. The promise was that all serious petitions with more than 200 signatures would get a response from the Prime Minister, one of his ministers or an official.

"What all the signatories to the Hands of Herts petition have received instead is an anonymous stream of Downing Street drivel. In Gordon Brown's Brave New World, it seems that the people of St Albans are viewed as 'epsilon semi-morons'. There is no mention at all of St Albans or Hertfordshire - the subjects of the petition. There are real issues around addressing housing need in Hertfordshire but you would not know it from this response. It just drones on about Green Belt policy.

"There is a breath-taking dishonesty in the suggestion that it is local authorities driving the agenda. It was Ruth Kelly's own inspectors who over-ruled the proposed housing totals developed by the East of England Regional Assembly. Then Ruth Kelly over-ruled her own inspectors and demanded yet more housing units by 2021. That is what has put our Green Belt in hazard. Now the new Secretary of State has announced the winding up of the Regional Assembly as if to underline the way the Government has continued to ride rough-shod over the wishes of local councillors and people.

"The Downing Street suggestion that the threat to the Hertfordshire is 'nothing to do with me, guv' simply insults our intelligence," Sandy said. "The Prime Minister should give a straight answer to the questions put in the petition and not wash his hands of the whole process. The next stage will be to take the Hands Off Herts campaign to Downing Street. He must be left under no illusion that people in St Albans and Hertfordshire care passionately about the integrity of their city and county"

ENDS

For further information please call Sandy Walkington on 07802 177317

The Prime Minister's response can be viewed at http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page13179.asp

Full text of original e-petition signed by 1528 individuals (and thousands more in the printed version)

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to prevent the destruction of rural Hertfordshire through opening up existing and precious Green Belt to unsustainable and inappropriate housing development which will overwhelm the local transport, school, health and water supply infrastructure and lead to the creation of "the London Borough of Hertfordshire"

Details of Petition:

"If Secretary of State Ruth Kelly has her way, many lovely areas of Hertfordshire countryside could become housing estates by 2021. The original East of England plan proposed 79,600 dwellings for Hertfordshire; an Inspectors' Report recommended 83,200; the Secretary of State wants at least another 10,000 on top of that figure, and possibly significantly more. Although she talks of preserving the integrity of the Green Belt there is no doubt that a significant proportion of these houses would have to be built on it. In particular it will lead to the "coalescence" of St Albans with Hemel Hempstead and Hatfield with the loss of 2,000 years of history."

Full text of Downing Street response

The Government currently has no intention to fundamentally revise or dilute Green Belt policy, as it re-emphasised in the White Paper of May 2007 - 'Planning for a Sustainable Future'.

Green Belt policy is set out in 'Planning Policy Guidance note 2: Green Belts' (PPG2). This policy allows for Green Belt boundary revisions in two ways. Changes to the general extent must occur at the regional level, through the Regional Spatial Strategy. In addition, changes to detailed boundaries can also be made at the local level, through the Local Development Framework.

Protection of the Green Belts is strong and there must be clear reasons given for any revisions of Green Belt boundaries, with changes only to be made in exceptional circumstances. However, the White Paper also stressed that development should take place in the most appropriate and sustainable locations. It is because appropriate, sustainable development is so important that planning authorities should, where appropriate, continue to review their Green Belt boundaries when drawing up their development plans. The current planning policy in PPG2 already allows them to do so.

Regarding planning applications on Green Belt land, Parliament has entrusted local authorities with responsibility for controlling development in their areas. It is for local authorities to decide whether a proposal should be given planning permission. To do this, local authorities must pay particular regard to all relevant considerations which fairly and reasonably relate to the application concerned. These considerations include what provisions are made in statutory Development Plans and any relevant views expressed by neighbouring occupiers, local residents and other third parties: although local authorities are not bound to accept those views.

The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government only intervenes in the responsibility of local authorities only in the most exceptional circumstances and then only when issues of national or regional importance are involved. To do so more often would undermine the responsibility given to local planning authorities.

Concerns regarding particular planning applications should be made to the local Council, so they can be taken into account in their determination of the planning applications.