Following the East Herts District Council’s decision to grant planning permission for 118 homes on Bengeo Field, Save Bengeo Field Ltd filed an application for a judicial review on 3rd April 2025 and have been waiting for the Planning Court’s decision. On 3rd November the Planning Court issued its response, and while a Judicial Review will not be immediately granted the Court determined that our claim had sufficient merit in the case to allow a “reconsideration”.
On 6th November Save Bengeo Field Ltd applied to the Planning Court for a reconsideration of their decision. SBF is delighted to have been granted this opportunity by the Planning Court, which could have decided that the case had no merit.
We believe we have significantly strengthened our case since we submitted our original claim back in April 2025,and so we asked for reconsideration on nine separate grounds. Four of these focus on how the decision was justified by the Council’s own Planning Officers and also on how the issues were presented to Councillors at the Planning Meeting in September 2024. We expect the next stage will be a short hearing at the Planning Court when we will have the opportunity to present our case for granting a Judicial Review. We remain hopeful that a Judicial Review will be granted.
This area of land was given the very lowest suitability rating for development in the 2015 East Herts Green Belt Review. As part of the 2018 District Plan adoption, it was removed from the Green Belt and given a housing allocation of 100 homes, but this was on the basis that development would only happen if the landscape was destroyed first by quarrying on a neighbouring area of Bengeo Field.
East Herts District Council have been consistently clear up until 2022 that this was the position. They stated that the reason for the conditionality was because of “green belt and land profiling issues”. The Council has now gone back on this undertaking and are ignoring their own Plan.
Further information
Residents were outraged by the EHDC Planning Committee’s decision on 21st February 2025 to grant Durkan permission to build more than 100 homes on Bengeo Field – on both sides of the public byway, which is an Asset of Community Value. There were significant concerns and also disbelief at the lack of consideration given to the earlier finding of a planning inspector and to the Bengeo Neighbourhood Area Plan (ratified by a referendum), which both identified Bengeo Field as a landscape of considerable importance.
The EHDC planning officer’s report to Committee members was inconsistent with the Council’s own district plan where their stated Policy HERT4 North of Hertford was: “Land to the north of Hertford is allocated as a residential development site to accommodate 150 homes, with 50 dwellings being provided to the north of Sacombe Road by 2022; and, subject to the satisfactory previous phased extraction of mineral deposits on the neighbouring site, 100 homes to the west of B158 Wadesmill Road between 2022 and 2027.”
This policy was clearly communicated to Councillors and residents at the time, with the clear understanding that residential development would only be considered after gravel extraction, and the consequent damage of this special landscape. However, the planning officers and Committee did not adhere to the stated policy and granted permission in spite of the quarry application being rejected due to the special nature of the landscape. Dr Andrew Stevenson, former Bengeo County Councillor, said: “I was County Councillor at the time that the District Council were developing and consulting on their planning policy. I was told very clearly in meetings and it was in the documents that the policy was only to develop this land for housing IF AND AFTER a quarry had been developed and completed. I was very surprised to see the officers report of the District Council recommending housing without a quarry having been built. This goes against everything I was led to believe at the time.”
Veronica Fraser, one of the Hertford residents, stated: “I’m absolutely horrified that EHDC have agreed housing development on Bengeo Field. I want our Bengeo Councillors, and the Council overall, to know that that decision is considered a total betrayal of democratic representation, and the Council’s commitment to the Bengeo Neighbourhood Area Plan and that no building development would happen unless the area was quarried. I attended the EHDC Committee meeting where development was approved and, as someone supportive of local councils, I was deeply disappointed by the quality of the discussion and the many inaccurate statements that preceded the vote. The potential loss of a much loved green space is worrying. Even more worrying is the overall feeling that our local government organisation is willing to ignore the strength of local feeling and appear to pander to developers”.
Following the contentious Committee’s decision a group of residents incorporated a company to formalise a long standing group, with the hope of buying the field in the long term.
In the initial determination the Judge described Durkan’s cost claim as “excessive”. SBF campaigners feel that this represents tactics to intimidate residents by weaponizing legal costs instead of allowing a fair and reasonable reconsideration of the Bengeo Field case on its merits with each side bearing their own costs. SBF has offered this fair-minded approach to East Herts District Council to avoid burdening the council (and taxpayers) with SBF costs.
Aśka Pickering, one of the Save Bengeo Field campaigners, stated: “The residents of Hertford and areas around have tirelessly campaigned for a number of years to protect Bengeo Field from development, as this is a much loved and much used green area. Community support to save Bengeo Field from housing development is now growing rapidly with fundraising actively under way.”
The previous campaign Stop Bengeo Quarry gained over 4,000 supporters and resulted in the Planning Inspectorate’s hearing and the Secretary of State’s decision that a quarry should not be permitted in the area.
John Howson, resident and former Chair of Bengeo Neighbourhood Area Plan, said: “In essence what the landowner has done is propose a quarry as a mechanism to get land taken out of the green belt with the sole intention of then building houses. Thus, setting a dangerous precedent. On this basis the Council’s decision would give a green light to any developer to get land removed from green belt whatever its public use and landscape value. EHDC have gone along with this at every stage, despite the independent judgement of a Planning Inspector and against their own word. Bengeo residents are not against houses being built in the area, but they are against building on a piece of land used by hundreds of residents and highly valued by the community for its landscape value”.
