Another development has been proposed for the Bushey area, including 80 apartments and an 80-bed care home.
Plans for a new development at the Caldecote Farm site to the north of Elstree Road, Bushey Heath, have appeared on the Hertsmere Borough Council planning portal this week.
It includes a street with 13 family houses to the west of the site, an 80-bed care home block to the north, and apartments spread across three blocks of eight, 12, and 60 flats.
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Iceni Projects, which proposed the Caldecote Farm development on behalf of developer Heronslea, has highlighted that the need for housing for older people is “critical”.
It added that new homes will “address the significant unmet need within the local authority”, offer economic benefits for the area, be “of an exceptional design quality”, and provide above requirement levels of affordable housing.
There will be 43 one, two, or three-bedroom apartments for market and 37 flats designated as social, ‘affordable rent’, or first homes.
The site is within the green belt, but Iceni Projects argues that the “very special circumstances” needed to justify building there exist in this case due to local need for the housing it offers, amid unmet Hertsmere housing targets.
The number of proposed homes for Bushey continues to increase
In the last two weeks, a developer has announced its intention to build up to 700 homes to the north of Farm Way, Bushey, while another submitted a planning application for 350 homes at the former Bushey Hall Golf Club site.
Not long earlier, in June, a 1,300-home “intergenerational development” was proposed for 93-acres of green belt land between Heathbourne Road and the M1.
In March, a 165-home plan was submitted for the Bushey Golf and Country Club site and a 98-bedroom care home for Heathbourne Road is still pending consideration after being proposed in January.
This makes 2,786 properties in major developments currently under consideration for Bushey.
Hertsmere councillor Nik Oakley, who is the cabinet member responsible for planning, said that the large number of major applications coming in for Bushey green belt is partly due to the removal of several of the area’s best green spaces from the emerging local plan.
She suggested developers that had been expecting the sites to be put forward for housebuilding may have decided to put speculative plans in for what they had intended anyway when land was removed, in hopes of proving "very special circumstances".
“There are some which have merit and other allocations which will test our green belt policy considerably,” Cllr Oakley said, adding that the council is required to judge each on its own merits.
“Applications that are in the green belt will need to demonstrate very special circumstances and our officers will be assessing every recommendation against set criteria.”
The Borehamwood councillor added that some of the schemes had been in the works for a long time and so the number coming in at once is also partly coincidental.
Housebuilding targets have been increased for Hertsmere and the council acknowledges the need to deliver "decent and affordable homes", but it is trying to look at ways to balance this with preserving countryside by making the most of non-green-belt sites and protecting the best spaces.
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