Future of Letchworth Consultation
We have been consulting on the future of Letchworth.
Letchworth Garden City is likely to grow in the future. The North Herts Local Plan includes policies meaning that Letchworth will change over coming years, including growth in the amount of housing in the town.
Our Local Housing Study explored housing within Letchworth and found that there is a need for additional housing. We undertook a more recent Housing Needs Study, involving a survey sent to every resident in Letchworth, which further highlighted the need for housing.
The Heritage Foundation is committed to planning for sustainable growth – in line with Garden City Principles. We want to support opportunities for new housing, local investment and improvements to local infrastructure. Yet, we cannot do this alone and need your help.
Thank you to everyone who has taken part in our Future of Letchworth Consultation, which ran over a year between autumn 2018 and the end of summer 2019. We held engaging conversations with the community, asking what it’s like to live in Letchworth, what can improve the town, how it might change and the areas of key importance to residents. We have now concluded Phase One and Phase Two of the consultation and the findings can be found on these pages.
Latest update - June 2020
Due to COVID-19, the Local Plan Public Examination is expected to conclude later than planned, towards the end of 2020. Once this has taken place, we will develop more detailed proposals for the potential development to the north of the Grange Estate.
Over the last few months, we have carried out more detailed surveys on traffic, nearby junctions and ecology. This will help inform our ideas and discussions with the statutory authorities. Should the Local Plan be adopted, we will develop these ideas and formulate proposals to restart the conversation with the community.
For the site to the east of Talbot Way and Kristiansand Way (CLG3), we are working up ideas and plan to consult further with local residents this summer.
We are committed to continuing the conversation, as developments with the North Herts Local Plan progress, so please visit these pages again in the future for further information.
Phase One Consultation - 2018
During Autumn 2018, we set out to gain feedback on emerging themes of importance in relation to life in our unique town, with a broad focus on housing, transport, design and the economy.
How we contacted households in Letchworth:
- We delivered newsletters to each household in Letchworth about the consultation and how to get involved.
- We held pop-up events and enjoyed speaking to many local people who came to visit us between October - December 2018.
- Over 1,500 visitors responded on our interactive website, mapping local feedback and suggested improvements for specific localities within the town.
With partners, we researched the housing needs of local people and were delighted to receive nearly 500 responses.
Find out what we learnt following Phase One of our consultation.
Phase Two Consultation
Phase Two of our consultation ran from the spring of 2019 to the end of July 2019. This provided an opportunity to discuss, in more detail, the sites in the Heritage Foundation's ownership allocated for new housing in North Hertfordshire District Council’s Local Plan. We also further explored key topics of importance raised during Phase One of the consultation, in particular transport and ecology and environment.
We were very keen to receive as much feedback as possible from the community in relation to our proposals, particularly the following key subjects:
- LG1 Land North of Letchworth
- LG3 Land East of Talbot Way and Kristiansand Way
- Development Plans - Transport
- Environment
Click on the Get Involved in our Phase Two Consultation button below to find out more information and how the community was encouraged to feed in views.
Design Competition
In the Autumn, working with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), we launched a design ideas competition called, ‘Re-Imagining the Garden City’.
We received 95 entries, which were shortlisted down to a final four designs.
Over 300 of you visited the exhibition of our design entries and voted to help us in choosing a winner.
You can still visit the Design Competition pages to view the proposals, designs and visions for modern Garden City living and housing. Even though the judging process is now complete, we still welcome your comments on the shortlisted entries. This will help us understand your views on the key aspects which should be included in future development proposals.
