Dacorum officers recommend approving up to 700 homes north of Polehanger Lane despite 228 objections. The committee votes on Thursday 15 October at 7pm; to speak, register by 5pm on Wednesday.
Dacorum’s planning officers are recommending approval for up to 700 homes on farmland north of Polehanger Lane, on the north-western edge of Hemel Hempstead. The Development Management Committee decides on Thursday 15 October at 7pm in the Council Chamber at The Forum. It is the only application on the agenda (Dacorum Borough Council, agenda for 15 October 2026).
The site is Green Belt, and 228 of the 239 residents who responded objected. Officers say the council’s housing shortfall is severe enough to outweigh that harm. Their 302-page report is published in full (committee report, item 5a).
What is proposed
The application, reference 25/01742/MOA, is in outline. That means the principle of building and the access from Berkhamsted Road are decided now, and the layout, design and exact numbers come later. The applicant is Hallam Land with the landowners, R N and D W Gardner, through agent Roebuck Land and Planning.
The 51.8 hectare site sits between the edge of Gadebridge to the south, Berkhamsted Road to the west and the Halsey Field wildlife site to the east, with the Boxted Farm employment area to the north-west. Dell Wood, which is ancient woodland, is excluded. The scheme would include:
- up to 700 homes, with 5 per cent of plots for self-build or custom-build
- a minimum of 40 per cent affordable housing, split 70 per cent social or affordable rent and 30 per cent shared ownership
- an extra-care home of up to 66 units, 40 per cent of them affordable
- a children’s home for up to three children, with carer accommodation
- a two-form-entry primary school with a nursery on a 2.03 hectare site, and a 275 square metre early-years childcare building
- a neighbourhood centre on 0.7 hectares for shops and community uses
- a 275 square metre community building with a badminton hall, a multi-use games area and 0.45 hectares of allotments
- 16.4 hectares of “suitable alternative natural greenspace”, a 4 hectare biodiversity area, and 9 hectares of public open space
Access would be a new roundabout on Berkhamsted Road, with the road’s speed limit cut to 40mph or 30mph on the approaches and “dragon’s teeth” markings.
Why officers say yes to Green Belt land
The report does not pretend the site is anything other than Green Belt. It classes the scheme as inappropriate development, which can only be permitted where “very special circumstances” clearly outweigh the harm.
Officers find those circumstances in the state of the borough’s housing supply. Dacorum can show about 1.2 years of deliverable housing land against the five years the government requires. Its Housing Delivery Test result for 2025 was 52 per cent of what was expected. The report calls that “a severe and acute shortfall, which weighs heavily in favour of boosting housing delivery at the earliest opportunity”.
Three other points carry weight:
- the land meets the government’s definition of “Grey Belt”, because it does not strongly serve the Green Belt’s purposes. The scheme does not meet the “Golden Rules” package the rules attach to Grey Belt, so it still needs very special circumstances
- a planning inspector allowed an appeal on the neighbouring Land West of Leighton Buzzard Road, part of the same Green Belt parcel, and found that site to be Grey Belt too
- the site is allocation Hm13 in the council’s emerging Local Plan to 2041, for about 750 homes. That plan has been through its examination hearings and the council is waiting for the inspectors’ findings, so it carries only limited weight for now
Officers accept there would be harm to the landscape and to the setting of the Chilterns National Landscape, which is about 500 metres to the north and west, and that the loss of good farmland counts against the scheme. They conclude the benefits win.
What residents said, and the officers’ answers
Letters went to 1,904 properties and three site notices went up. Of the 239 responses:
- 228 objected
- 4 supported
- 7 commented without taking a side
The report notes the applicant held no public consultation of its own before submitting, beyond the newspaper advert and site notice the environmental rules require.
The main objections and the officer responses, in summary:
- Loss of Green Belt: inappropriate development, but very special circumstances outweigh it
- Harm to the Chilterns landscape: real, even after planting, but balanced against housing need
- Too big: the scale matches the Local Plan allocation, and density of 30 to 50 homes per hectare is policy-compliant
- Build on brownfield first: the rules impose no brownfield-first test, and with 1.2 years of supply brownfield alone “is not feasible”
- Not enough infrastructure: the school land and funding, health money and open space are all secured through the legal agreement
- Traffic: a “material increase” is acknowledged, but Hertfordshire County Council as highway authority raised no objection, and the modelling was independently reviewed
- Trains: use of Hemel Hempstead and Berkhamsted stations is “well below” pre-Covid levels, so the extra demand is not a reason to refuse
The money the developer would pay
The Section 106 agreement would fund a long list of off-site works. The figures are indicative and would be indexed, and they depend on the final number of homes.
- £12,085,320 for the new two-form-entry primary school on site
- £7,793,339 towards expanding secondary school places
- £1,364,248 towards special educational needs places, and £47,003 to equip the early-years building
- £1,239,074 towards health facilities, including Parkwood Drive Surgery or the Hemel Health Campus, plus £237,244 for mental health capacity and £246,876 for community health
- £847,719 towards the Hemel Leisure Centre pool and sports hall, or a new pitch at Chaulden Adventure Playground
- £539,083 for playing pitches, £755,498 for changing rooms and £1,801,675 for their upkeep over 25 years
- £679,303 to subsidise a new 30-minute daytime bus service, Monday to Saturday, with an hourly evening and Sunday service, for five years
- £269,867 towards a West Herts ambulance hub
- £222,218 for police set-up costs, including a contribution to extending or replacing Hemel Hempstead police station and an ANPR camera on Berkhamsted Road
- £10,000 for access restrictions at the Fields End Lane and Boxted Road junction
When homes would be built
The report’s indicative trajectory has the first 10 homes completed in 2028/29, 50 a year from 2029/30 to 2031/32, then 100 a year from 2032/33 to 2036/37, and the last 90 in 2037/38. Those figures add up to 750, the emerging Local Plan’s allocation figure, rather than the 700 cap in this application. They are planning assumptions, not a builder’s programme.
The recommendation is that permission be “delegated with a view to approval”. If the committee agrees, officers would issue the permission only after:
- a final habitats assessment for the Chilterns Beechwoods Special Area of Conservation, with the on-site greenspace and a per-home contribution to visitor management at Ashridge secured
- the Section 106 agreement is signed
- the Secretary of State confirms the application will not be called in. Any major development approved in the Green Belt must be referred to the Planning Casework Unit, and so must a refusal of more than 150 homes
Layout, house types and the design of the school all come back as separate reserved matters applications.
What it means for you
If you want to speak on Thursday, you must register by 5pm on Wednesday 14 October by calling Member Support on 01442 228209 or emailing member.support@dacorum.gov.uk. Speakers get three minutes, or five minutes shared where more than one person speaks on the same side. Because the recommendation is approval, objectors can invoke speaking and supporters then get a right of reply. The committee finishes at 10.30pm whatever happens.
If you live in Gadebridge or Warners End, the practical changes are a new roundabout on Berkhamsted Road with a lower speed limit, a building programme the report’s own trajectory stretches over a decade, and, eventually, a new primary school and a neighbourhood centre within walking distance. The report says the new pedestrian and cycle links to the town centre would serve existing residents too.
If you are waiting for a council home, 40 per cent of 700 is up to 280 affordable homes, with 70 per cent of those for rent. On the trajectory above, the first would arrive around 2028/29.
The decision is the committee’s, not the officers’. Councillors can refuse against the recommendation, but a refusal of a scheme the emerging Local Plan allocates, with 1.2 years of housing supply, would very likely go to appeal. The committee system itself is about to change: from 31 October most applications in Dacorum will be decided by officers under the National Scheme of Delegation, as we reported in our story on the planning call-in changes. A scheme of this size would still come to committee.
The application’s 246 documents and all 248 public comments are on the council’s planning register. It was received on 14 July 2025 and validated on 19 March 2026, and the last round of neighbour consultation closed on 1 October 2026. More on every live scheme in the borough is on our Hemel Hempstead planning news page.
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