Work on new housing blueprint for Dacorum to begin – before the current plan has been agreed

Dacorum Borough Council has agreed to begin work on a new Local Plan to be submitted in 2028, while the authority waits for Government approval of the current Local Plan, which was submitted in March last year.

Local Plans set out where homes and infrastructure in an area will be built, and the government has said that all authorities should have up-to-date Plans in place.

Areas without a Local Plan in place can find it significantly harder to block unwanted developments, and, currently, Dacorum only has a 1.03-year supply of deliverable housing sites, far below the required minimum of five years.

Sally Symington, leader of the council, told a cabinet meeting last week (Tuesday, June 9) that there is a “legal requirement” to begin work on the new plan.

The authority took advantage of transitional arrangements by submitting a Local Plan in March last year that identified sites for 15,332 homes to be built between 2026 and 2041, meeting the housebuilding target set by the previous government.

If Dacorum had not used the transitional arrangements and had submitted a Plan under the current government’s housing targets, it would have been expected to find room for 4,500 more homes over the same 15-year period.

Adrian England, portfolio holder for place at the council, said they had been “smart and quick-footed in taking the best advantage of the available transitional arrangements” with their current Local Plan.

He said it is “really important for a borough to have a Local Plan … it’s a good sign of a healthy borough that is operating as it should”.

Separately, the Government yesterday (Monday, June 15) put the council into special measures, with major developments now able to go directly to the planning inspector for planning permission, rather than to the council.

It comes after more than 10% of the council’s major planning refusals over two years were overturned at appeal.