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The wholesale destruction of rural land around St Albans looks inevitable with the confirmation of controversial housing targets.

In the final version of planning guidance announced today, massive developments will be built in neighbouring Welwyn Hatfield and Hemel Hempstead.

While the exact locations have not been decided, the planning guidance document admits both are likely to spill over into the St Albans district and "strategic adjustments" of the Green Belt are inevitable.

Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidate Sandy Walkington said: "The Government is going to drown our historic cathedral and market city in a sea of new suburbia charmingly called London Arc West'.

"They are blowing apart the Green Belt around St Albans."

St Albans itself will have to find space for 5,370 homes, which district council planning officers believe can be done without major intrusions onto rural land, but 22,000 are proposed for Welwyn Hatfield and Dacorum.

The most likely areas are the former British Aerospace airfield, which would affect the Smallford area, and agricultural land between Hemel Hempstead and the A5183 Redbourn Road.

St Albans will receive an extra £600,000 for the cost of dealing with the extra population, which Mr Walkington described as "absolutely laughable."

And he warned the figures were considered the minimum needed to address the national housing shortage, so the true scale of development could be much larger.

2:13pm Monday 12th May 2008

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