The green belt contradiction

One field, two stories

The Local Plan’s Part II site table labels H9 / CFS26a “grey belt” and says it was removed from the Green Belt. “Grey belt” is a planning category used to justify building on some Green Belt land.¹

But the council’s own Sustainability Appraisal says the opposite in plain terms: the site “is green belt land and is not considered to be grey belt”. The allocating authority and its own appraisal do not agree on what this land even is.²

And the Part II table itself concedes the awkwardness: the site “is one of those allocated under ministerial direction. Full council considered the site to be Green Belt… and considered that it should be retained in the Green Belt.”¹

What the council’s own review found

In its Stage 4 Green Belt review, reported to the Local Plan Sub-Committee on 25 November 2025, the council rated the land of “Fundamental Importance” and concluded it:

would undermine on three grounds its contribution to the Green Belt (a), (b) and (c). It requires the development of agricultural land to the M25, requires a new road traversing the site potentially undermining any SANG contribution. Any additional shopping core is likely undermine the viability of the Abbots Langley Town centre. Note: Previously rejected in 2023.

Three Rivers District Council · Stage 4 Green Belt Review, 2025

That is the council’s own evidence: harm on three Green Belt grounds, a new road cutting across the site, a risk to the town centre — and a site it had rejected only two years earlier.³

The council’s Sustainability Appraisal adds that the greenfield site — which contains ancient woodland, a Local Wildlife Site and protected trees, and which its own review noted would “merge Abbots and Kings Langley” — “would have adverse effects on biodiversity” and “result in loss of agricultural land”.²

Then it was directed in

On 18 March 2026 the Minister of State for Housing and Planning issued a direction requiring the council to allocate a set of sites, including CFS26a, to lift its plan to “approximately 85% of need”.⁴ The council’s own officers had warned, in the report to Full Council, that the plan was “likely to be thrown out at examination”.⁵

So this is not a site the council chose on the evidence. It is a site the council assessed as fundamentally important, rejected, and was then required to include. The direction compels inclusion — but it does not make the evidence say something it doesn’t.