More doctors must come before new homes in south-west Hertfordshire, a senior councillor has said.

Councillor Oliver Cooper, leader of the Conservative Group at Three Rivers District Council, has warned his colleagues that developers could wriggle out of their infrastructure obligations in the emerging local plan.

The Chorleywood North and Sarratt councillor suggested planning policy in Three Rivers should require developers to make sure facilities are “contracted to open and operate” before buyers and renters move into new builds.

Cllr Stephen Giles-Medhurst, Leavesden councillor and deputy leader of the Liberal Democrat-run council, said he has included the “tightest possible wording” in the draft plan.

At a council meeting on Tuesday, October 17, when a consultation on the draft plan was green-lit, Cllr Cooper told authority leaders “legally secured” infrastructure is not a guarantee it will come forward once homes are built and sold.

“It happens time and time again that we have the benefits and facilities stripped away,” he said, referring to large housebuilding projects.

“‘Legally secured’ might be something our legal officers, to whom I will defer on a number of things, might say is safe and is defensible.

“We suggest instead that there be a contract for [facilities] to be ‘open and operated’.”
Several housing policies in the draft plan would require developers to provide facilities, if they come forward with their own schemes.

If developers want to build 850 homes west and south of Maple Cross, the emerging policies suggest they should be prepared to provide primary education facilities potentially in the form of an extension to an existing school, a local centre with shops, play space and a GP surgery.

Planners with proposals for 550 homes in Mill End “would be required to provide a primary school and/or a health centre”, as well as play space.

Cllr Cooper warned that if the Integrated Care Board (ICB), the NHS organisation which looks at how to meet local healthcare needs, “is not going to pay the current expenditure of employing doctors at a GP surgery, the fact the site is allocated for a GP surgery is neither here nor there and immaterial”.

He said: “When the ICB says ‘we are not going to operate it’, any applicant can then get a 96A application through.

“As a consequence, we need to have it contracted to ‘open and operate’ so there are costs to anyone backing away from it.”

Section 96A of the Town and Country Planning Act allows developers to make alterations to their building schemes, if the change is not considered to be “material”.

Four parties appear united in call for infrastructure

Cllr Cooper is not the only politician who has warned housebuilders are failing to provide infrastructure for new and existing residents.

Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer told BBC Three Counties Radio the planning system is like the “Wild West” in an interview.

Speaking to Andy Collins on Thursday, October 12, Sir Keir raised the case of Wixams, a new town in the Mid Bedfordshire constituency.

Wixams has been under construction since 2007, and with roughly 3,000 homes built, it is still missing the planned GP surgery and a railway station.

“None of that turned up,” Sir Keir said.

“What you will not get from me is the building of houses but not the infrastrucure.

“There’s got to be a coherent plan that’s got the infrastructure – it could be GPs, schools or train stations.”

He added: “If there’s going to be building here so that local people can buy a nice house and get on in life, the infrastructure has got to go with it.”

On a visit to Hertfordshire in March, Green Party leader Adrian Ramsay told the Local Democracy Reporting Service a “dearth” of infrastructure is holding back “green growth” in the East.

He said: “There is a pattern of big developments on the edge of towns which are not followed up with the right infrastructure – water supply, school places and so on.

“The way we’re doing housing in this country is just not ticking any boxes.”

According to the party’s website, the Liberal Democrats are calling for “developers [to] build appropriate infrastructure needed for new housing developments”.

Cllr Giles-Medhurst told his colleagues at Three Rivers District Council’s October meeting: “I did obviously speak to officers, and officers spoke to legal.

“I won’t name the individual officers.

“I sent around the legal advice as to what we can tighten up on Maple Cross and [Mill End].

“That is the legal advice from our professional officers, not the advice from me.

“It’s fair to say a slightly different wording which was perhaps a little bit looser was suggested but I have said to officers I want the tightest possible wording.

“We cannot legally go any further.”

After the consultation on the plan, which earmarks sites for 4,852 homes in total, it must go back to councillors who can make changes before the Planning Inspectorate approves, rejects or modifies it.