Hertsmere’s Planning Committee have voted not to allow the building of up to 220 homes on the land off Barnet Lane & Furzehill Road/Horses’ Field, Borehamwood.
The Committee did not believe ‘very special circumstances’ had been proved to build up to 220 homes on this parcel of land nor enough account taken of the already difficult traffic conditions for many hours of the day as parents take their children to and from school and people leave and enter the town for work on often gridlocked roads.
The vote was quite tight with 6 members voting to refuse the application and 4 members voting to allow the development with 1 member – the Chair of the Committee - abstaining.
All four Conservative members of the committee voted to refuse the development along with one Labour and one Liberal Democrat member.
Three Labour Councillors voted to allow the green belt development – Cllr Smith and two Hertsmere Cabinet Members Labour Deputy Leader Cllr Chris Gray and Cllr Rani. The fourth member to vote in favour of allowing the green belt development was the Coalition’s Liberal Democrat Cabinet member from Bushey, Cllr Alan Matthews.
At the meeting Community Advocate Cllr Morris Bright MBE spoke against the application on behalf of many local groups and read out a letter of support from Member of Parliament Oliver Dowden CBE. Cllr Bright said: “There was lots of window dressing with this application with extras around buses and bikes provision, but ultimately existing chronic traffic conditions would be made worse and we must now allow much needed greenbelt to be stripped away. Residents are very pleased with the outcome of the vote and grateful to the six members who stood up for our town’s green belt”.
Pat Strack from the Elstree & Borehamwood Green Belt Society said: “This is victory against attempts to dump so much building on our Town’s greenbelt without any real benefit for the town housing needs. We are talking 100 marketplace homes prices in the region of £1 million each with around 100 affordable homes. Well, how affordable will they really be for the people in our town? Yes, we need housing but not just dumped on parcels of greenbelt land here and there. This is not the way to do it.”
The meeting was also attended also by many concerned local residents who broke out into spontaneous applause when the application was refused.
