HUGE SCALE OF PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT IN BRAINTREE DISTRICT REVEALED

Greens to fight against “wholly unacceptable and unsustainable land grab by developers” 

 

Braintree District Council has published an interactive map (1) showing the sites that landowners and developers have submitted to the new Local Plan during the “Call for Sites”.

 

The scale of the proposals is huge. Many communities are almost surrounded by proposed sites and some would lose their identity and merge with towns if the developers get their way. Large areas of open countryside and wildlife habitats would be lost with historic landscapes permanently changed from rural to suburban.

 

The new Local Plan is having to be drawn up due to changes in Government planning rules. These changes meant that the Local Development Framework (LDF), which BDC had been working on for many years, had to be stopped even though it was nearing completion and had included numerous public consultations. 

 

Cllr. James Abbott, Green Party District and County Councillor said 

 

“Green Councillors will fight this wholly unacceptable and unsustainable land grab by developers deep into the countryside.

 

When the proposal was put to BDC to more than treble the rate of development in the district, Green councillors did not support it. We simply do not accept that the proposed rate of development is deliverable or that it will benefit local communities or even meet the demand for local affordable housing – which should be the top priority.

 

Many local residents have been contacting us in recent months, worried by the sight of surveyors in the countryside around the villages where they live. Now the true scale of the proposals is known. Communities face two years of consultations, even though they have only recently been consulted on the LDF.

 

We accept that not all of the sites will be developed, but even while consultations will be underway on site allocations, developers may submit planning applications to try to exploit the fact that BDC does not have an adopted Plan, which is why BDC has rightly put aside resources to recruit more planning officers and to fight potential future planning appeals.

 

Localism has been turned on its head and the blame lies full square with the Government which has moved the planning goalposts. Local Conservative MPs need to explain how they can possibly justify what their Government has done.

 

As Greens we completely accept the need for sustainable development to provide appropriate levels of housing, employment and other allocations on suitable sites, but this needs to be through working with local communities and making sure that change can be successfully accommodated.

 

The Government has created a Developers Charter, ensuring that landowners will make £millions if they can get their farmland allocated. This appears to be a new definition of “farming” “. 

 

NOTES: 

 

(1)

 

http://maps.braintree.gov.uk/localviewweb/sites/localplancfs/   

 

 

 

 

Published by Philip Hughes on behalf of Essex Green Party and all Green candidates all at 163 Honeysuckle Way, Witham CM8 2YD