The Verulam Residents Association exists to represent the interests of residents in the area bounded by Watford Road, King Harry Lane and the part of the A414 which used to be the M10.
Bedmond Lane Field Development
We have just heard that Banner Homes’s planning application to build stables on Bedmond Lane Field, originally considered at a planning committee meeting in March, will now be considered again at a planning committee meeting, open to the public, on Monday 12 September, starting at 7 pm, at the Civic Centre. We don’t yet know whether the council planners will recommend approval or rejection of the application. The VRA will continue to argue that the application should be rejected. As soon as we have more information we will let you know, but in the meantime please put this date in your diaries.
Bedmond Lane Field update
We are happy to announce that Banner Homes have failed in their latest attempt to overturn St Albans District Council’s decision to list Bedmond Lane Field as an Asset of Community Value. At a hearing before a judge earlier this month Banner Homes and the Council (supported by the VRA) put forward arguments on the two legal questions still under dispute. In his judgement, just issued, the judge has rejected Banner’s arguments and upheld the original decision to list the field as an ACV.
This is of course good news, but Banner may now try to find a point or points of law upon which they can appeal.
In the meantime the Council are still considering Banner’s planning application to use the field for grazing. We have found, and sent to the council, details of an almost identical application made in Somerset in 2014 which was refused and the refusal was upheld on appeal. We believe that this gives the council plenty of ammunition to reject this application – we hope they use it.
As ever, we will keep you posted.
Thank you for your continuing support.
Verulam Residents Association
Annual General Meeting
Thursday 12 May 2016
7.00 pm for 7.30 pm
Prae Wood School
Please come along to our AGM to meet your fellow residents and hear about what is going on in your community. Open to all.
7.00 Reception with drinks and snacks
7.30 Welcome, Introduction and Apologies for absence
7.40 Guest speaker: Vanessa Gregory will talk about the work of Look! St Albans
(www.lookstalbans.org) an inclusive community group that actively promotes community engagement on significant developments in central St Albans.
8.00 To approve Minutes of Annual General Meeting held on 14 May 2015 and to discuss any matters arising from the Minutes.
• Chairman’s Report.
• Treasurer’s Report
• To approve amendments to the Constitution
• Election of Officers
9.00 Any other business and Question and Answer session.
9.25 Chairman’s closing remarks.
Sergeant Fox from Hertfordshire Constabulary will be at the meeting to answer any questions you may have about crime prevention or other police related activities.
Bedmond Lane Field
Do you want the good news or the bad news?
The good news is that, last night, the Council planning committee voted narrowly to reject Banner Homes’ application for a change of use to allow grazing on Bedmond Lane Filed.
The not so good news is that they were unable to come up with a valid reason for doing so, which means that the vote can’t stand. So the decision has been deferred.
The main area of contention seemed to be whether the proposed Ecological Management Plan was sufficiently robust and, it it wasn’t, whether this gave sufficient justification to reject the application. We believe that as well as the weaknesses in the Plan there were other reasons that justified rejecting the application and are disappointed that the committee seemed to disregard these.
What this all means (we think – this is all rather complicated and even the committee seemed a bit confused about what it had done) is that the whole matter will come back to a later meeting and be debated and voted on again.
The VRA will do everything it can to continue to argue as vigorously as possible that the application should be rejected. We’ll keep you posted as to what this might mean in practical terms and how you can help.
Thanks to everybody who came to the meeting to show their support. If you want to watch the podcast of the meeting, and try and work out for yourself what’s going on, you can do so here: http://www.stalbans.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/217865
Bedmond Field
The Council will decide whether or not to approve Banner Homes’ application to graze horses on Bedmond Field at a meeting at the Civic Centre next Monday, 21 March, starting at 7pm. The VRA will speak, opposing the application. The meeting is open to the public.
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