PLANNING AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT
Introduction
Our lives are affected by the country’s planning system at three levels:
- At the national level, Government policies on issues such as housing provision and major infrastructure development guide what happens over the wider area, and influence the context in which Hitchin changes over time.
- At the Local Authority level, Herts County Council policies guide among other matters education provision and transport, while North Herts Council policies include guidance of housing and employment development, conservation and design. All these directly affect what happens in our town and the surrounding area.
- At the most local level, major development proposals such as Churchgate, as well as individual site applications are decided by NHC (and sometimes by the Secretary of State) and can have a major impact on local people.
At each level, Hitchin Forum can have an impact, working with the wider community and other local societies. This means that as individuals working together we can make a difference.
We regularly monitor Planning Applications in the parish of Hitchin, and in some of the neighbouring (and potentially abutting) villages. Where appropriate we comment upon the proposals in writing and where necessary attend and speak at meetings of the Planning Committee.
Within the town we pay particular attention to historic buildings, often with input from Hitchin Historical Society.
We also have had a long-running active involvement in caring for the future of Hitchin’s Churchgate shopping centre, Market and adjacent car parks and riverside walkway.
There have been many applications for small developments and change of use within Hitchin, including The Priory office blocks changing to residential flats. Most involve higher density of housing and more cars.
New housing developments on the edges of Hitchin involving more than 1,000 new dwellings are located on land which was Green Belt, but which was taken out of this designation and protection by the most recent Local Plan. We generally opposed these proposals, due to loss of countryside and the cumulative effect of the number of cars involved in each development – typically over 2 per dwelling. On the positive side, we welcomed typically 40% ‘affordable’ housing, air source heat pumps and solar panels.
We have challenged those areas which were within the Green Belt in the current Local Plan being put forward for development as “Grey Belt” under the latest Government Guidelines.
We do not generally comment on village matters but felt obliged to oppose an application for up to 100 houses in the centre of Ickleford. In doing so we calculated that applications and recent developments in Ickleford amounted to 296 dwellings, over 25% greater than contained in the Local Plan. We pointed out the increase in traffic in both Ickleford and Hitchin arising from these developments.
We also noted the increase in traffic in Ickleford and Hitchin arising from extensive recent developments in Lower Stondon.
Conclusion
If you agree with us that these planning issues are important, and would like to influence what Hitchin Forum says on them, please make sure you are a member of the Forum (https://www.hitchinforum.org.uk/about-us/membership-2/), and consider whether you would like to join us in pursuing the policy issues or helping to comment on development proposals and applications (planning@hitchinforum.org.uk).
July 2026