News

A six-week consultation on our Revised Draft Local Plan ended last week, with more than 1,300 people having their say on how Dacorum should look until 2040.

All residents, businesses based here and visitors to the borough were encouraged to give their views to help to decide the plan and direction for Dacorum for more than the next decade. The consultation was held online, through our interactive engagement platform, Let’s Talk Dacorum, and by post, while our Local Plan team also talked to many residents at in-person events and to youth councils across the borough.

The comments provided during this consultation on our Revised Strategy for Growth will strongly influence the creation of the new Dacorum Local Plan 2024-2040.

Now the consultation period has ended, we will analyse all of your responses and prepare a Consultation Report for spring 2024. The next step will be to produce a draft version of the Local Plan for a further public consultation in autumn 2024, ahead of formal submission by spring 2025.

The Local Plan lays out the strategy for delivering new homes, jobs and investment. It will plan for important infrastructure such as schools, transport and health facilities, and set our approach to protecting and providing parks and green spaces, and the way in which we respond to the challenges of climate change. It will also provide the policies to be considered when decisions are made on planning applications.

Cllr Sheron Wilkie, our Portfolio Holder for Place, said: “I would like to thank everyone who took the time to provide their views as part of this consultation. All comments are extremely valuable in the Local Plan process as these let us know what you think about how things are now, what works and what doesn’t, and how we can make improvements so that Dacorum can become an even better place to live, work and visit.

“We will now be working hard to analyse all comments so that they’re taken into consideration before we progress the plan.

“It has also been incredibly pleasing to see such a positive response from people to our new online engagement platform during the consultation. Once registered, you can have your say on a wide variety of projects and keep up to date with all the Council is doing.”