High Court dismisses case against two resi schemes in St Albans green belt

The High Court has given the green light to two developments totalling more than 700 homes in the St Albans metropolitan green belt, dismissing a lawsuit from concerned local residents. Campaign group Keep Chiswell Green opposed plans by Cala Homes to build 391 homes in the Chiswell Green area of St Albans and by Headlands Way to build 330 affordable homes for key workers on a neighbouring site. The group claimed that current plans will see more than 1,000 new home built in the area, more than doubling its size, without improving access to infrastructure such as schools, dentists and GP surgeries. The two developments in question were initially rejected by the council, which was concerned by the potential damage they would do to the green belt. However, the developers appealed and a planning inspector recommended the schemes for approval. According to the ruling handed down today, the inspector noted the potential impact on the green belt but weighed it against the “very substantial” need for housing in the district and the need for affordable housing which is “persistently going unmet”. The planning inspectors’s inquiry took place in April and May last year, and the secretary of state started to consider the case from June. The same month, the council received a report it had commissioned into the local area’s green belt. Keep Chiswell Green took legal action, saying that the secretary of state should have taken into account the report. The case was heard earlier this month. In the ruling today, specialist planning judge Mrs Justice Lang dismissed the case. “Resources for planning inquiries are finite and there is a strong public interest in the finality of proceedings,” she said. “No proper justification has been advanced by the claimants for the court to exercise its discretion exceptionally to consider new evidence.” “The application for statutory review is dismissed,” she said. Keep Chiswell Green v (1) Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, (2) Cala Homes (Chiltern) Ltd, (3) Headlands Way Ltd, and (4) St Albans City and District Council Planning Court (Lang J) 29 October 2024 Image © Shutterstock