EXCLUSIVE'They don't give a s***': Fury over 'diabolical' plans for 15,000 newbuild homes on greenbelt land as debt-ridden council compared to 'Lord of the Rings' by desperate locals
Fuming locals have raged at a council planning to build thousands of homes on green belt surrounding one of England's oldest market towns.
St Albans Council sent its proposal to use land including 800 hectares of green belt to build 15,000 homes by 2041 to Labour's Planning Inspectorate at the end of 2024.
Homeowners in the area slammed the 'diabolical' plan by developers who 'don't give a s***' to destroy the countryside and said the extra homes would put local services under unbearable strain.
Although the council has promised £750million of infrastructure as part of the plan the council is £200million in debt from a previous housing scheme and locals fear developers would simply pull out of providing services - as has happened in Kent.
Last month, people in Ashford, Kent, were left distraught when the lead housebuilder of a 6,000-home estate announced plans to pull £50million of infrastructure funding as it said it had 'ceased to be possible in the financial markets' and would be 'prohibitively expensive and self-defeating'.
Hardworking Brits living in and around St Albans fear the same could happen to them if the plans are approved.
Swathes of countryside across Britain face being bulldozed under Labour's plan to build 1.5 million homes in the next five years.
Gee Smedley, 47, a finance trainer from St Albans who runs local action group CLASH in her spare time told MailOnline: 'It's an absolutely diabolical mess. We've had a lot of stress. Residents are spending thousands yearly fighting it.
Gee Medley, 47, (pictured) told MailOnline the plans for newbuilds on green belt near her home were 'diabolical'
Sue Dunt, 64, (pictured with her two-year-old Staffy Vizla cross Saffron) said the plans were 'a joke' and 'just ridiculous'
These rolling green belt fields near St Albans would be turned into a huge housing estate under the plans
'We're really disappointed in this government who have come in and torn up the protections.
'Planning is political. All governments have had kind of the same target over the last however many years - 1.5 million [homes] seems to be a rolling target.
'If you could deliver it before without using green belt, why now tear up the green belt?
'Most residents don't think it's the right strategy by our house because of the flooding.
'The wider concern is a lack of infrastructure. Nobody is adverse to building. St Albans does have brownfield but the greenbelt is the easy option.
'It doesn't stack up and the evidence doesn't support it.
'This is some of the most valuable greenbelt there is. All the surveys say St Albans is the best place to live so it pushes up the value of the land.
Joan Aziz (pictured) is nearly 70 and moved into a house beside fields earmarked for development this week
Stanley Jackson, 75, said the new homes would bring further traffic to an area already struggling with the 'chaos' on a daily basis
Pictured: Green belt farmland that will be used as the site for thousands of homes if the plans go ahead
Each light brown area surrounded by a purple line will be green belt used for homes under the plan, amounting to more than 800 hectares of countryside
'The land by our house used to be £20,000 an acre. They've just sold the field for £38million.'
Addressing Housing Minister Angela Rayner directly, she said: 'Build houses where there's already infrastructure. Green belt rarely has that.
'Don't call in applications over local communities when you're trying to devolve power anyway. It makes no sense.
'There's a lot of hypocritical statements. You're not delivering what you said you would deliver.'
A flood risk assessment commissioned by Mrs Smedley and other local volunteers found that the field by her home was unsuitable for development because of the 'unavoidable flood risk'.
The report said: 'Development areas should be steered away from the site, and should be allocated to other sites that are appropriate for development with a lower risk of flooding.'
Mrs Smedley added: 'None of the maths makes sense. If you could build your house on stilts, you'd be in order.
'But it's not a piece of green field that can be easily converted, [it has] huge environmental consequences and infrastructure challenges. It can't deliver.
'It doesn't makes any sense. In the meantime, we could be delivering more conversion of existing, built-on land.'
Her neighbour Stanley Jackson, 75, moved to St Albans with his wife six years ago to be closer to his son and their grandchildren.
He said: 'Labour has reduced the numbers required in London where Labour have all their seats and increased it here.
A flood risk assessment commissioned by Mrs Smedley and other local volunteers found that the field (pictured) by her home was unsuitable for development because of the 'unavoidable flood risk'
Locals said they were almost brought to tears by the council's plan to bulldoze the countryside
'If you come along this road when the school is in, at 3pm it's utter chaos.'
He's not the only local who felt Labour was sticking a knife into the heart of the community.
Innovation consultant Emma, in her 40s and her partner Alistair, 52, have lived together in St Albans for around eight years.
Emma told MailOnline: 'What's nice about here is that you can go into the city but feel like you also have a foot in the countryside so you can go for a long run and walks.
'This completely messes that up. My concern is the trees. I don't trust the council and developers to be thoughtful.
'I voted Labour and I get that we need more housing. It brings to mind Lord of The Rings type imagery - massive bulldozing down of things and is it actually improving the community and in harmony with nature?
'I don't get a feeling that it is. [The developers] don't give a s***.
'The thing about the Labour manifesto is that it makes you feel more helpless. Before I thought, there's not a lot we can do to oppose something, they probably won't listen anyway. But now I feel like there really isn't.
'We need to feel more empowered locally.
'You get a sense that there will be no green belt. No difference between St Albans and Harpenden. You can imagine them building on everything. What's the plan?
'You feel really powerless. We got a consultation thing through the door but what can we really do?
'It's rubbish. It really is. I just want to be around nature. I'm not interested in all this development. You could almost weep at it.
'The walk we do down there [in my favourite field] would be completely demolished.
Her partner Alistair said: 'The developers are in it for the money. The plan is to cover the countryside in housing and the consulting process is just PR.
'I find the whole thing very irritating. There's only one reason we're building more houses and that's because there are more people and there's obviously one reason for that.'
A few miles away, Sue Dunt, 64, lives in Hemel Hempstead in the neighbouring borough of Dacorum, beside rolling Hertfordshire fields that St Albans council wants to destroy.
She told MailOnline: 'It's just a joke. We don't have the infrastructure here to cope with it all.
They slammed Labour for setting the huge targets that St Albans Council is following
A council spokesman told MailOnline the Local Plan 'has to be legally compliant and in line with national policies, including targets for new housing in the district that are set by the Government and not by us'
'We've only got two doctors on this estate and they're both full to capacity. We've got not dentists, no nothing. 'I just don't know how the roads are going to cope with it.
'It's just ridiculous.'
Her neighbour Terry Davies, 90, the father and ex-trainer of Olympic medallist swimmer Sharron Davies, lives next to green belt fields in Hemel Hempstead that are earmarked for development.
Former special services veteran Terry told MailOnline: 'I don't know why as a nation we're not building upwards. It's happening everywhere. I've been here 23 years.
'It's ridiculous. This development is going to make [congestion] worse.
'Politics these days - they're a bunch of f***ing nutcases. Look at the group we've got now. They got a smaller number of votes than last time when we beat them.'
Joan Aziz is nearly 70 and moved into a house beside the fields this week.
However, she was unaware the fields were earmarked for development.
When she found out, she was gutted.
'I just don't like it,' she said. 'I like the green areas.'
Another neighbour, Bobbi Amamou, in her 60s, works at a nearby school. She said: 'It's not good news. When we moved out here this is how it was, all lovely and green.
'It's a vast amount [they're planning to build on]. It's really sad because it's a lovely area. We've got all this lovely greenery that's going to be going.'
Conservative MP Kevin Hollinrake, the Shadow Secretary of State for Housing and Communities, said: 'The Labour Government have used their sleight of hand invention of 'grey belt' land as a Trojan Horse to undermine important national Green Belt protections and are now going to bulldoze the countryside by disproportionately moving development into Green Belt and rural areas.
'When the Conservatives were in government, we delivered over 2.5 million homes without concreting over the Green Belt.
'Labour must prioritise building on brownfield land in urban areas rather than ignoring local communities wishes to protect Green Belt land'.
A St Albans spokesman said:'We have stressed to our residents that the Local Plan has to be legally compliant and in line with national policies, including targets for new housing in the district that are set by the Government and not by us.
'Producing a Local Plan is one of the most challenging and complex tasks that a council of our size has to undertake.
'It involved three years of work including numerous public meetings, discussions, reports and studies, some carried out by independent experts.
'We have been entirely transparent throughout this process, providing regular updates to councillors of all parties at committee meetings open to the public.
'Residents, community groups, businesses, neighbouring local authorities, statutory bodies and other organisations helped shape the Local Plan by giving their views in two major consultations.
'All of the feedback we received was carefully considered, analysed in published reports and put before councillors on our Planning Policy Committee.
'People will still have a chance to raise any objections they may have during the examination hearings.'
A Ministry of Housing spokesman said: 'We have inherited the worst housing crisis in living memory and all areas, including St Albans, must play their part as we deliver 1.5 million homes as part of our Plan for Change.
'Our ambitious plans to provide the housing we need will not come at the expense of the environment. Brownfield sites which people are desperate to see used will be developed first, and any greenbelt development will deliver the infrastructure and affordable housing which communities need.'
