Say NO to 133 houses on our GREEN belt

Do we really want to lose these TWO green fields for ever?

Green Man (5/2025/1218) – 49 homes on Green Belt land
Shottfield Close (5/2025/1556) – 84 homes on Green Belt land

IMPORTANT & URGENT NOTICE !!! 

We’ve had a response from the Planning Officer, who has said they hope Shottfield will be on the September agenda, although they can’t confirm this yet. Please put the 7th September meeting in your diaries as we need as many people to attend as possible to show support.

The Council's discussion and decision on Shottfield Close was deferred until the next council meeting - Monday 7th September 7pm. This is where they vote on whether it will be approved or refused. The Council's planning officer recommends approval - read her report here. The deferral was due to uncertainty over the proposed mitigation to provide skylark habitat at Pound Farm. You can read more about this here. It was reported in the St Albans Times article here.

We have sent the Councillors and Planning Officer our final documents. Explaining in great detail why we continue to object to the proposal, and in technical detail why we disagree with the Planning Officer's conclusion that approval should be granted. An SOS spokesperson should be allowed to read a brief statement.

We’ve also received some robust and detailed information from HRH, acting on behalf of the applicant, around skylark mitigation, which has now been uploaded to the planning portal. From our initial review, we believe this may have satisfied the Committee’s request for further information on this point.

Current status after 13 months! (both applications):

• Called in to the Development Management Committee (DMC)

• Awaiting officer recommendation and committee date

• Earliest possible committee date: 7th September 2026. Agendas are published one week before each meeting and we will confirm whether either application is to be considered.

• Green Man: Latest document added to the portal on 5th August from the Lead Local Flood Authority, whose stance is now 'no objection subject to conditions'. Still awaiting several other statutory consultee responses, officer recommendation and committee date

• Shottfield Close: Planning Officer has recommended approval. Committee Date was 3rd August. Decision to defer to next meeting based on uncertainty of Skylark mitigation. SOS has contacted Planning Officer for an update regarding next steps.

There is still time for you to object! Follow these links for Shottfield and Green Man, or you can email your objections to planningcomments@stalbans.gov.uk with reference 5/2025/1556 for Shottfield or 5/2025/1218 for Green Man and make it clear that you object, and remember to include your name address and postcode.

Save Our Sandridge continues to monitor developments and review newly submitted documents.

More News

• We have contacted the planning officer and members of the DMC to request that the Shottfield application be deferred until appropriate skylark mitigation measures are agreed. See our letter here.

• We have written to the Woodland Trust which the Senior Ecologist recommended as a potential recipient of compensation payments if the development proceeds, asking whether this would align with their long-term ecological objectives for Heartwood Forest. They replied that they would not accept that, because skylarks are not woodland creatures.

• The Salvation Army then offered to set aside patches of a field in Pound Farm (which they also own) for skylarks evicted from Shottfield to nest in instead.

• We have also objected to the (NHS) ICB's reliance on the proposed Woollam Park GP facility, as that project remains unapproved and is not a secured healthcare mitigation measure. See our letter here.

• We have submitted 12 separate videos of skylarks, along with records of deer and badgers, from the Shottfield Close site to HERC and they have updated the local ecological database. As skylarks are a UK Red List species, documenting their presence is important in assessing the ecological impact of the development.

• We have revised our Q&A Page and added Jargon Buster should you be bamboozled by some of the terminology!

Say NO to 133 houses on our GREEN belt

Other Updates

Woollam Park - this outline planning application for 1,000 homes on the fields between Harpenden Road and the railway line will have a big impact on Sandridge - not just the extra road traffic, but also because they intend to close Sandridgebury Lane, forcing Sandridge residents who need to access North St Albans (eg STAGS and Townsend schools) to negotiate the two extremely busy junctions at the King William and Ancient Briton. There is still time to comment on the planning portal 5/2024/2271 - the plans are so vast that the Council made a separate website for all the plan documents here. We have now submitted an objection on behalf of Save Our Sandridge (SOS) - you can read it here.

NPPF - we have submitted our response to the Government's proposed reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework - you can read it here. We copied our MP Victoria Collins on our submission, you can read her detailed reply to SOS here.

Publicity - We walked around both Sandridge sites with Matt Adams, the editor of the highly respected St Albans Times newspaper, and his in-depth article was published on 9th October 2025 [link]. With a follow-up on 26th January 2026 [link].

Alternatives to Development - We've added links to three organisations which ALL explain how to tackle the housing crisis WITHOUT destroying green fields!

Archaeology - We've added a section about the Sandridge Gold Hoard which was discovered in 2012. It illustrates how this is an important area to preserve and protect, not to build upon!

Sewage & Flooding - We've added a section about the sewage and surface water problem (see here) and have been in touch with our MP. You can read her reply here.

Community Planning Alliance

The Community Planning Alliance have published their Grey Belt Tracker results:

• 68,000 'grey belt' houses shown in our tracker

• Of which 65% are at planning application, 14% at appeal and 17% in local plan review.

• Sites are listed as mostly arable, meadow, pasture & paddock (plus 14 entries that are flood plain).
  Not a disused petrol station or car park in sight.

• 80% are for housing, 7% industrial and 7% solar (the rest other)

• The three worst affected Green Belts are Metropolitan, North West and West Midlands.

• AT LEAST 5,800 acres at risk (many submitting were uncertain about the amount of land at risk, for example during a local plan review).

Here are the sites mapped - you can click on each marker to find out more.
You can add any green belt applications you are aware of to the tracker here.

And here is the Greying the Green Belt Report: click here.

Don’t forget they have a day of action for nature, parks and green spaces on 18th April. Click here for more information.

NPPF consultation resources are here.

“Green Belt is often portrayed as unattractive ‘scrub land’, an argument used to say it is worthless and should be developed. But national planning policy states: ‘Once Green Belts have been defined; local planning authorities should plan positively to enhance their beneficial use.’ And Green Belt is increasingly needed to plant forests, help manage rainfall, moderate the urban heat island effect, provide habitat to address species decline, grow food locally to cities, and provide space for recreation.

Talking about building on Green Belt as a means to solving the housing crisis is a red herring, a distraction.” (CPRE, February 2025)

This website was most recently updated on Tue 25-Aug-2026