In February we revealed how houses could be built on the site of a proposed rail freight depot.

Hertfordshire County Council, which owns the Park Street green belt land, near St Albans, suggested the site could be used for around 2,000 homes.

Developer HelioSlough was given permission to build the £300 million Strategic Rail Freight Interchange (SRFI) on the former Radlett Airfield site in 2014.

However, following St Albans District Council’s call for housing sites as part of its Local Plan, the county council proposed the airfield as one of eight sites.

County council leader Cllr David Williams said: “We’ve always said we’d prefer the Radlett airfield site to remain as green belt and that we’d rather not sell it, but we recognise we need to build 90,000 new homes in the county over the next 15 years and some 13,700 of those will need to be in St Albans district.

“That’s why it makes sense for us to offer up this land, which we own, as a possible site for a garden village with 2,000 new homes and infrastructure.

“The county council remains firmly opposed to the interchange, but if the developer offers to buy this land we may have no legal option except to sell it. “