Breakhrough in stadium campaign

Our team of Lib Dem borough councillors for Bushey North have long been fighting plans for Watford FC to build a new stadium in Bushey.

As a key part of our campaign, we set out to protect Bushey Hall Golf Course - the proposed stadium site - from being redeveloped for any scheme along these lines. And we now have some very good news to report.

Back in June last year, Cllr Paul Richards applied to Hertsmere Borough Council for a Tree Preservation Order (TPO), which would protect the extensive wooded areas at the golf course, some of which are around a hundred years old.

After months of Paul working to push the TPO through, it has now finally been approved by council officers. On Friday 15th January, the order was formally served on the course. What this means is that the site's owners are not allowed to fell trees on the principal areas of the site - and therefore, developers could not dig up the course to build a stadium on it.

In theory, the order could one day be overturned, and the owners have the right to appeal to Hertsmere's planning committee. Nevertheless, there is now a huge new obstacle in the way of any attempt to progress the stadium plan.

We'd like to thank the many hundreds of Bushey residents who've supported our campaign, and we're also very grateful to the council officers at Hertsmere for all their hard work in expediting the TPO.

The documents relating to the order will shortly be published on the planning and parks pages of the Hertsmere website.