Sir,
Having read that the Borough is looking to build around 7,000 new houses I have no doubt that Hatfield will be the town to receive the majority. I shall be watching carefully to see how the Welwyn Garden Society manipulates their friendly Borough Council chums into preserving as much of their town to the detriment of ours.
I hope I’m wrong, but watch this space!
I fully acknowledge that this increasingly overcrowded county of ours needs to provide more affordable homes but I think there is an opportunity for Hatfield here too; I refer to community well-being and the many hundreds of student-let ex family homes that now blight our neighbourhoods. The blame for this does not necessarily fall upon students either.
Whilst the proposed housing demand has to be delivered by the Council over the next 17 years, I noticed that the recent University Masterplan talks in terms of the next FIFTY years - yes, half a century! It also mentions that the new on-campus construction of student accommodation will effectively only create an additional one thousand units further to what they already have on the main campus. This is nowhere near enough.
In my view, the University are simply run as a business like any other company. They are not community partners and they give no concessions to the local people who suffer because of their presence in Hatfield.
It must be remembered too, that the University were given the majority of their estate.
They didn’t pay for it like other businesses have to.
My suggestion is for the University to bid for a chunk of the green belt land that will be released for housing by the Government - just like other developers will. Some land near their campuses at Ellenbrook should become available, and they should build a few thousand student apartments in one large enclave.
Hopefully this will free up much of the student-let housing in our neighbourhoods which can then be returned for family use.
Regards, Chris Garner, Hatfield