{"id":97556,"date":"2025-08-26T05:28:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T05:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/97556\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T05:28:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T05:28:08","slug":"hartsmere-planners-back-350-homes-at-former-bushey-hall-golf-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/97556\/","title":{"rendered":"Hartsmere planners back 350 homes at former Bushey Hall Golf Club"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christopher Day<\/p>\n

Local Democracy Reporting Service<\/p>\n

\"PegasusPegasus Group\/Griggs Homes\/Hertsmere Borough Council<\/p>\n

An artist’s impression of some of the new homes, which a developer says will help tackle a borough’s housing crisis<\/p>\n

Plans to build 350 homes on a former golf club have been approved – with 245 of them described as affordable.<\/p>\n

Hertsmere Borough Council’s planning committee signed off the scheme at the former Bushey Hall Golf Club, which closed in 2019, at a meeting on Thursday.<\/p>\n

James Craig, director at developer Griggs Homes, said this was “the single largest affordable housing delivery in Hertsmere’s history”.<\/p>\n

Four years ago, the golf club’s owners submitted plans to build a new stadium<\/a> for Watford Football Club on the land.<\/p>\n

\"PegasusPegasus Group\/Griggs Homes\/Hertsmere Borough Council<\/p>\n

A map showing how there will be two access points to the site – from Bushey Hall Drive and Bushey Mill Lane<\/p>\n

The application for the 350 homes was first considered in June, when a row erupted between councillors and officers after the committee voted against granting permission. <\/p>\n

A final decision was deferred until the meeting on Thursday, when the scheme was narrowly approved by five votes to four, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A key point of friction was whether the land in Bushey, near Watford, should be classed as grey belt or green belt.<\/p>\n

Planning officers argued it did not strongly contribute to the green belt’s purposes, which include preventing neighbouring towns merging.<\/p>\n

Brett Rosehill, a Conservative councillor who represents the Aldenham East ward, had proposed rejecting the application on the grounds that it should be classed as green belt. <\/p>\n

He described it as “the last line of defence against a merging between Bushey and Watford”, adding “the harms of the development would outweigh its benefits”.<\/p>\n

\"PegasusPegasus Group\/Griggs Homes\/Hertsmere Borough Council<\/p>\n

Louise Nicolas, a Liberal Democrat councillor who represents Bushey North, described a proposed new medical centre as a “pipedream”<\/p>\n

The 245 affordable homes will include 91 homes available for social rent at around 50% of market value, including 20 four-bedroom homes and 35 three-bedroom homes.<\/p>\n

Thirty-one properties will be available at affordable rent \u2013 80% of market value \u2013 and 123 properties for shared ownership.<\/p>\n

Linda Smith, a Labour councillor who represents the Borehamwood Cowley Hill ward, said she was “blown away” by the “phenomenal” amount of affordable housing proposed.<\/p>\n

Natalie Susman, a Conservative councillor who represents Shenley, noted the “dire shortage” of larger affordable and social rent homes in Hertsmere.<\/p>\n

An average of just 52 affordable homes have been built per year over the last decade in the area.<\/p>\n

Mr Craig said the site offered “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform North Bushey and deliver benefits on a scale never seen before in Hertsmere”.<\/p>\n

He added the scheme was a “sustainable, landscape-led development and delivers a package of benefits unmatched” in the area with contributions made towards local infrastructure totalling more than \u00a320m.<\/p>\n

The application was for outline permission with full details \u2013 such as parking \u2013 to be confirmed in further applications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christopher Day Local Democracy Reporting Service Pegasus Group\/Griggs Homes\/Hertsmere Borough Council An artist’s impression of some of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-97556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}