The council’s planning leader believes the Government’s delay in publishing new proposals on housing will make it “more difficult” to review its controversial local plan.

It was announced in February that plans were being put forward on a new method for councils to use while assessing housing need in their area.

This new approach was due to be revealed by the end of July with a consultation period to follow.

However, the Department for Communities and Local Government has said this has now been put back until September.

Conservative Councillor Mary Maynard, who represents planning at St Albans City and District Council, said the hold-up was “disappointing” for the Strategic Local Plan (SLP), which had already faced setbacks after a planning inspector concluded there was a lack of cooperation with neighbouring planning authorities when it was drawn up last year.

READ MORE: Work begins to amend controversial local plan

READ MORE: St Albans council fails in legal battle to save controversial local plan 

Cllr Maynard said: “It is disappointing that the Government has delayed publishing this new methodology. We expected it to give us much needed clarity on how they want us to calculate the need for housing in the district and thus how many homes we may need to build.

“We were expecting to know the Government’s proposals going into our review and to have had time to consider them.

“It would make fulfilling our duty to co-operate with neighbouring councils easier as we could all be following the same methodology on housing need. Much of our historic disagreement has been about forecasts of housing need.”

The council took legal action in January this year to challenge the planning inspector’s conclusion.

This decision was upheld by the High Court last month, which obliged the council to take steps to overcome the inspector’s concerns.

A major issue was how the council had arrived at its figure for the number of new homes needed in the district, as the figure given in the local plan was 450 a year.

However, the council says it will continue to take action on the plan to identify areas for future housing and infrastructure development in the district.

The Department for Communities and Local Government has been contacted for comment.