At a crunch Welwyn Hatfield Council meeting last night, Lib Dem and Labour councillors agreed to build thousands of new homes across swathes of our Green Belt.
Half of Conservative councillors present for the vote decided they could not support the Local Plan being discussed.
They said it was no longer the plan many had agreed with, but one forced on Welwyn Hatfield by an independent inspector.
They were angered that his insistence on consulting on additional new sites within a very short time would lead to even more development in rural areas of the borough.
“The plan many Conservatives agreed to previously included a total of just over 13,000 during the local plan period,” said Northaw and Cuffley Ward councillor Bernard Sarson.
“The inspector has always insisted the borough should be hit with significantly more, many of them on ‘high harm’ green field sites. By agreeing this version of the Local Plan the council has allowed the inspector to get in his higher numbers by the back door.”
Lib Dem and Labour councillors all voted for the latest draft of the borough’s development blueprint for the coming decade or so – despite years of saying they would never support any plan that included such high numbers.
It includes plans to build on Green Belt land in rural Welham Green and Woolmer Green. It also includes land in Brookmans Park and Cuffley, sites the inspector insisted be included.
Councillor Julie Cragg, whose borough ward includes Woolmer Green, said: "I - and some of my colleagues – refused to support this vote because it isn't the plan we put forward when we were running the council until May.
"The Planning Inspector has gone out of his way to frustrate Welwyn Hatfield's Local Plan process, and recently has insisted upon higher numbers which Welwyn Hatfield can't and shouldn't take.”
