Hi everyone,

Thank you so much for signing up to Save Coopers Lane. We’re writing with an important update and a couple of requests.

REGULATION 19 IS NOW OPEN, BUT PLEASE HOLD FIRE!

You may have seen that Welwyn Hatfield Council has opened its Regulation 19 consultation on the draft Local Plan. This is the stage where the council publishes what it considers to be the final version of its plan, and their plan now includes 425 homes and 6 Gypsy and Traveller pitches on the green belt fields behind Coopers Lane.

Here’s the crucial thing to understand: Regulation 19 is very different from the earlier stages.

A few months ago (at Regulation 18 stage), the council was asking “what do you think about these ideas?” and any comment in any form was welcome. But the stage we’re at now, Reg 19, is a legal process. Your objection now needs to argue that the plan is not legally compliant or not “sound” – meaning it fails specific tests set out in national planning policy. Comments that don’t address these legal tests can simply be set aside and may not even be considered by the Planning Inspector.

That’s why we’re asking you: please don’t submit your objection just yet.

We are in the process of consulting with planning and legal professionals to make sure we can guide you on exactly the right arguments to make – the ones that carry legal weight and that the Inspector must consider. We want every single one of our objections to land, not get filtered out on a technicality.

The consultation window runs until 4 November, so we have some time. We will be in touch well before the deadline with clear guidance on what to say and how to say it. When we do, we’ll try to guide you through everything to make submitting as straightforward as possible.

WE NEED YOUR HELP TO FUND THE FIGHT

To give ourselves the best possible chance, we need professional support – legal advice, planning consultants, and potentially commissioning independent reports on things like ecology, traffic and infrastructure. That costs money.

We’ve set up a fundraiser with a target of £5,000 to cover these initial costs. Every contribution, no matter how small, makes a real difference and sends a signal that this community isn’t going to roll over.

👉 https://www.gofundme.com/f/save-coopers-lane-road-from-new-housing 

If you’re able to share the link with neighbours, friends and anyone else who cares about our green belt, that would be a huge help.

We currently have a number of people working on this, if you have offered your help when signing up we have not forgotten you and will be in touch when we have things that need to be done.

WHAT TO DO RIGHT NOW

• Don’t submit a Reg 19 objection yet. Please wait for our guidance.
• Contribute to the fundraiser if you can.
• Share our website savecooperslane.org with anyone affected
• If you have any contacts that have experience in this type of planning objections or legal experience then please reply to this email with details
• Keep an eye on your inbox. We’ll be back in touch soon with everything you need

We didn’t ask for this fight, but we’ve got a real community behind us and we intend to make our voices heard properly. 

Thank you for being part of it.

Warm regards,

The Save Coopers Lane Team

savecooperslane.org

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