More about infrastructure planning and delivery

A key requirement of the Dacorum Local Plan is to ensure that there is sufficient and appropriate infrastructure in place to meet the planned growth. This needs to consider both the individual requirements arising from developments and also address the cumulative impact of growth across the borough. 

The Infrastructure Delivery Plan identifies infrastructure requirements across the borough, setting out what is needed, where and when, and the expected cost. It is developed in consultation with infrastructure providers and forms an essential part of the evidence base to the Local Plan. The Infrastructure Delivery Plan is a live document and is regularly updated based on current needs.

Our Draft Dacorum Infrastructure Delivery Plan (November 2020) for the Dacorum Local Plan (2020-2038) Emerging Strategy for Growth included projects grouped under themes of: highways and transportation, education, community facilities, health and wellbeing, green infrastructure, emergency services, utilities, and flood protection. 

Key partners to producing the Infrastructure Delivery Plan include:

• Hertfordshire County Council with responsibilities in highways and transportation, education, youth services, libraries, and emergency services; 
• NHS Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care Board with responsibilities in primary health care (this includes GP surgeries), acute care (hospitals), community and mental health and wellbeing and ambulance services; 
• Utility providers, including water, gas, electricity and digital infrastructure providers; and
• the Environment Agency.

Further information on all the organisations we engage with can be found in the Draft Dacorum Infrastructure Delivery Plan. 

The Council collects Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) contributions from developers towards the provision of infrastructure required to support growth in Dacorum. 

Developments may also be required to contribute towards infrastructure through planning obligations such as S106, Unilateral Undertakings and S278 agreements, if these contributions meet the tests that show they are necessary to make the development acceptable in planning terms.  

Charges by utility providers also help fund the delivery of new utility services.  

Community needs for infrastructure are much greater than can be funded through new development alone. Funding from other sources, such as Central Government grants or the Hertfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership, will also be needed to deliver large scale infrastructure projects. 

Grants from various sources to improve specific types of infrastructure e.g. sports pitches or environmental improvements, are another important source of funding.

The Infrastructure Delivery Plan will identify potential funding sources as well as the responsible body to deliver different infrastructure. 

The revised strategy has allowed us to reduce the overall growth in most locations. This will result in less pressure on existing infrastructure in these areas. In Berkhamsted and Tring we propose retaining one Green Belt site in each town. We will not take forward infrastructure and community needs arising from the draft Green Belt allocations that we are now proposing to delete.

Proposing fewer Green Belt sites for housing reduces the opportunity to deliver new infrastructure that requires more land – such as playing pitches – and may also lead to towns and villages sharing types of new infrastructure that require a higher number of new homes in order to be delivered, such as secondary schools.

Directing growth towards Hemel Hempstead, our largest settlement, will generate more opportunities to deliver new infrastructure. 

All other aspects of the Emerging Strategy for Growth, including infrastructure requirements are currently retained.

We will review your feedback and continue to work with infrastructure providers to identify Dacorum's needs as our new Dacorum Local Plan develops.

We will present our full updated Infrastructure Delivery Plan document with our (final) pre-submission local plan for consultation at Regulation 19.