Dacorum Borough Council (DBC) has blocked permission to resurrect a former gasworks site in Hemel, into nearly 500 homes.
Berkeley’s application proposes 476 private, ‘affordable’ homes on the site, car and cycle parking, landscaping, amenity space and refuse storage, and improved access from London Road.
The 9.2-acre Hemel Hempstead Gasworks has been largely derelict for over 60 years and has been allocated for housing development in the council’s Local Plan since 2013.
According to the BBC, eight per cent of the 476 one- and two-bedroom flats would have been designated as affordable, well below the council’s expectation of 35 per cent.
In a Development Management meeting on Thursday, December 12, DBC’s planning committee voted against granting permission for the land near Hemel Hempstead railway station, despite officers recommending approval for the plan.
The refusal came the same day that the government announced an overhaul of the planning system to accelerate housebuilding and deliver 1.5 million homes across the country.
The decision has been met with a mixed response from residents.
One said: “The area would need significant infrastructure changes to even be able to support construction, let alone the residents of such a development. All it takes is temporary traffic lights for a hole in the road in Apsley to trigger ridiculous tailbacks in both directions, so imagine what a constant flow of heavy plant machinery and materials to spend years building tower blocks would do.
“The very proposal was a complete failure of joined-up thinking.”
However, Berkeley has revealed that they will be appealing the decision.
Rob Perrins, Berkeley Group chief executive said: “The Government has made a hugely positive start to fixing our dysfunctional planning system and decisions like this show what they are up against at the local level.
“Councils with severe housing shortages can block new homes on sustainable brownfield sites they have allocated for housing in their own local plans.
“It makes no sense, and we encourage the government to keep up the pressure and continue doing everything it can to break down the barriers and get homes built.”
DBC has been contacted for comment.
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