FAQs for the Publication Period (concluded 17/12/2024)

• The Local Plan is a policy document. It sets the framework that planning applications are decided from.
• The Local Plan is where the big decisions on planning for the future of communities and land will be made.

• The Government expects all Local Planning authorities to have up-to-date Local Plans in place.
• An up-to-date Local Plan allows us to set local standards and requirements for development. It also means we can plan effectively for new infrastructure.
• Our current Plan is out of date and this causes increased risk of us losing control of planning decisions. 

• We’re consulting on the Pre-Submission version of the Dacorum Local Plan to 2041.
• This is our next stage in preparing the new Local Plan for the borough and updates the approach we shared in the Emerging Strategy for Growth document that was consulted on in 2020 and the Revised Strategy for Growth document that was consulted on in 2023. 
• The consultation is on the ‘legal compliance’ and ‘soundness’ of the plan (as set out in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), paragraph 35).

Local Plans are legally compliant if they are:

• prepared in accordance with our latest Local Development Scheme;
• accompanied by a Sustainability Appraisal and Habitats Regulations Assessment;
• subject to consultation carried out in accordance with our Statement of Community Involvement;
• compliant with all relevant laws including the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act (PCPA) and the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012; and
• prepared in line with the duty to cooperate (see below).

Local plans are considered to be sound if they are:

Provides a strategy which, as a minimum, seeks to meet our objectively assessed needs and is informed by agreements with other authorities, so that unmet need from neighbouring areas is accommodated where it is practical to do so and is consistent with achieving sustainable development.

An appropriate strategy, taking into account the reasonable alternatives, and based on proportionate evidence.

Deliverable over the plan period, and based on effective joint working on cross-boundary strategic matters that have been dealt with rather than deferred, as evidenced by the statement of common ground; and

Enabling the delivery of sustainable development in accordance with the policies in this framework and other statements of national planning policy, where relevant.

• The representation form can be downloaded from letstalk.dacorum.gov.uk/hub-page/newlocalplan . Please complete it in Word or print and complete by hand.
• Digital responses can be uploaded to Let’s Talk Dacorum.
• Hard copies of the form can be submitted by post to Strategic Planning, Dacorum Borough Council. The Forum, Marlowes, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire. HP1 1DN. 
• Please note that we will not be accepting emails as formal responses to the consultation. We will only be accepting responses made through the representation form and submitted online or by post, by the closing date and time. 

• Please complete Part A of the form once. This requires your personal details and contact information and will be associated with all further parts of your response.
• You will need to complete a separate Part B of the form for each policy or paragraph you wish to comment on. Please make additional copies of Part B by copying and pasting this section of the representation form each time you wish to respond to another policy or paragraph in the Local Plan.
• Once you have completed Part A, and as many Part B comments as you wish, please save your own copy of the representation form and upload it to Let’s Talk Dacorum (https://letstalk.dacorum.gov.uk/localplan).
• Alternatively, save a separate Part B document for each policy or paragraph you wish to respond to, and compress all the completed documents in a zip file and upload to Let’s Talk Dacorum.
• If you are submitting your representation form by post, you will need to print off and complete a separate copy of Part B for each policy or paragraph you wish to respond to, and include all printed and completed copies of Part A and B and post your response to:
  1. Strategic Planning, Dacorum Borough Council, The Forum, Marlowes, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire. HP1 1DN. 
• NB: you only need to complete Part A once.

• We are required to cooperate on strategic matters with neighbouring boroughs and certain statutory bodies prescribed by the Government.
• Such matters include housing, employment and infrastructure needs across the South West Herts Authorities.[1] It also includes protecting our internationally important habitat sites such as the Chilterns Beechwoods Special Area of Conservation.
• These are issues that cross administrative boundaries, so effective and ongoing joint working is integral to the production of a positively prepared and justified strategy.
• As a next step, the Council will start to prepare Statements of Common Ground with many of these organisations ahead of a future submission of the Local Plan to the Secretary of State for examination.  The Council will also prepare a Statement of Compliance with the Duty to Cooperate when the Local Plan is ready to be submitted for independent examination.

• This consultation is undertaken under ‘Regulation 19’ of the Local Plan making stages. 
• The plan preparation stage has concluded, and this is now a final plan. 
• The plan making stages are set out in the Dacorum Local Development Scheme. This is a separate document all local authorities have which sets the timetable for Local Plan and can be found on our website.

• Following the close of the consultation period, the Dacorum Local Plan to 2041, as well as other consultation documents, supporting documents and all consultation responses which meet the criteria above will be submitted to the Secretary of State for independent examination. 
• We will update our Local Plan webpages and send notifications at each step of the process to those who have responded to this consultation and asked to be updated, including when examination hearing dates have been set by the Planning Inspectorate. 
• We hope to adopt the Dacorum Local Plan to 2041 by early 2026.
• Further detail on the Local Plan timetable can be found in the Local Development Scheme.

• The document is split into 12 key chapters:
  1. The Sustainable Development Strategy – This sets out the vision, strategic objectives and spatial strategy for the Local Plan and what it means for each settlement and rural area in the borough. 
  2. Delivering Growth at Hemel Hempstead – This chapter recognises the key role that Hemel Hempstead plays in delivering much of the planned growth (c.70% of all housing in the plan period) for the borough. It presents the vision for the longer-term delivery of Hemel Garden Communities and includes area-based policies for a major urban extension to the north east of the town, and the Town Centre Opportunity Area, the Two Waters Opportunity Area and the Maylands Opportunity Area.
  3. Housing – This presents the overarching strategy for delivering housing across the borough and includes a mixture of strategic and non-strategic policies for matters such as affordable housing, housing mix, custom and self build, the travelling community and agriculture and forestry workers dwellings.
  4. Economy – This presents the strategy for employment and retail provision, with a focus on protecting existing town centres and strategic employment sites. Additional policies cover matters such as tourism, social value, and the loss of employment, retail and other main town centre uses.
  5. Climate Change – Policies in this chapter include sustainable design and construction, energy and carbon emissions reductions, carbon offsetting and protection from environmental pollution.
  6. Natural Environment – A substantial chapter covering a diverse range of matters, including landscape, the protection of habitats, the Chilterns Beechwoods Special Area of Conservation, watercourses, flood risk, tree protection and open land.
  7. Historic Environment – This presents the Council’s approach to protecting and enhancing heritage assets across the borough, including conservation areas.
  8. Design – This presents the strategic policy for design, which aligns well with the Dacorum Strategic Design Guide Supplementary Planning Document, as well as additional considerations relating to density, the height of development and public art.
  9. Transport and Connectivity – This chapter includes a suite of strategic and non-strategic policies to guide how people can move more sustainably across the borough.
  10. Healthy Communities – This chapter includes policies for the delivery of key community facilities such as schools, sports provision and open space. Other policies encourage or require the preparation of health impact assessments.
  11. Infrastructure Delivery and Monitoring - This brief chapter presents the strategic policy for how infrastructure will be delivered effectively, how policies will be monitored and when a review of the Local Plan will be triggered.
  12. Site Allocations - This chapter contains site specific policies and red line boundaries for each of the allocations included in the Local Plan.
      Appendices – The appendices include a comprehensive glossary of terms, the monitoring framework and other information considered important to the soundness of the Local Plan.

• Our Local Plan proposes delivering 15,332 homes in total between 2026 and 2041 – slightly higher than the Government’s target of 1,016 homes a year (15,240 homes) as calculated using the ‘standard method’. 
• This is an increase on the 2023 Revised Strategy for Growth consultation, which proposed delivering around 900 homes a year.
• The number of new homes to be delivered has increased in order to accommodate Dacorum’s objectively assessed housing needs as set by the Government.
• The National Planning Policy Framework published in December 2023 confirms that the Green Belt does not in itself justify a lower housing requirement. 
• Although national policy is clear that the ‘standard method’ is an advisory starting point, national planning guidance confirms that there is no justifiable case to deviate from this approach, and therefore we should be planning to meet our need. 
• The spatial strategy proposes growth in all of the major towns and large villages in the borough. Hemel Hempstead continues to be the focus of the majority of this growth, with Berkhamsted and Tring supported by site allocations. 
• Growth at Bovingdon, Kings Langley and Markyate provides the majority of the remaining development. Elsewhere, just under 400 dwellings are predicted to come forward outside of the six main settlements by 2041.
• Over half of the total planned growth will be provided within the existing settlement boundaries (including on previously developed land) through a mixture of site allocations, known commitments and a predicted windfall allowance.
• The strategy cannot deliver the level of homes (including affordable homes), jobs and infrastructure required within existing settlement boundaries. Furthermore, restricting the expansion of the towns and larger villages will only worsen affordability in these areas, with no viable spare land available for new school provision, employment opportunities or delivering infrastructure. The Council has explored all reasonable options and in order to deliver the vision and strategic objectives of the Local Plan, exceptional circumstances exist to amend the Green Belt boundary.

• We have undertaken thorough site assessment work to determine which of the potential sites that we are aware of are deliverable. 
• To be deliverable a site must pass 3 key tests:

1. The site must be suitable for development. (This is about characteristics, for example location, flood risk, heritage and landscape designations.)
2. The site must be available for development. (This means we need to demonstrate involvement with the developers and landowners.)
3. The site must be achievable for development. (This is about the technical matters of building out the site such as access, land contamination, drainage, etc.)

• The Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment Update can be found in the supporting evidence.

• A comprehensive Infrastructure Delivery Plan has been prepared to support this stage of the Local Plan. It includes requirements for all forms of infrastructure, from schools and health centres/GPs through to sustainable transport interventions and upgrades to the utilities in our area. 
• Currently, the Council collects Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) contributions from developers towards the provision of infrastructure, and developments may also be required to contribute towards infrastructure through planning obligations such as a Section 106 agreement. 
• The proposed sites will need to deliver or contribute towards new infrastructure to support community needs. 
• We have used your views to prepare a suite of evidence that considers infrastructure, including Sustainable Transport Studies for our main towns and Strategic Flood Risk Assessments. All infrastructure evidence can be found on Let’s Talk Dacorum.