Access
The junction onto Lower Road is not adequate. Even with a new roundabout it is too
close to Watery Lane and will only add to the traffic congestion further down the road at
the Rawreth Lane junction. If (or rather when) Watery Lane is closed the development
will add to the inevitable gridlock. The possible secondary acess via Maylands Lane is
even worse. The road is a rural road and is really not suitable for volume traffic, the
simple T junction at the end will be dangerous.
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Flood
The developers acknowledge that the site slopes towards Watery Lane. At the moment
fields take up quite a lot of water, yet Watery Lane and surroundings still flood. Building
on fields reduces the capacity of the ground to take up water and will exacerbate the
already bad flood situation. Even with attenuation tanks, balancing ponds etc. this
development will increase the flood risk. The potential impact downstream on Church
Road, London Road does not seem to have been considered
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Infrastructure
Hullbridge is a village with village roads. These were not designed to take volume traffic
and are already subject to severe traffic problems, it takes only a minor incident to
impact on a radius of several miles and adding to the traffic will only make this worse.
The application mentions schools, healthcare etc. and does in fact say that Downhall
Surgery will be able to take some extra patients. It also mentioned dentists and opticians
in Rayleigh. It completely ignores the impact that the North of London Road development
will have on local healthcare, schools etc. Southend Hospital has been on a black alert
several times this winter, it is doubtful if they have the capacity to deal with all the
potential residents of new developments
There are few completely local employment opportunities so most new residents will be
commuting to London/Basildon/Southend/Chelmsford. Despite the lovely words about
walking and cycling most of them are going to drive to work, the station etc. which will
bring them into the already congested Rawreth Lane area, to add to the extra traffic
coming from North of London Road.
Overall it is hard to see how this application can be considered in isolation. Local roads
are already at capacity before a single new house is built anywhere. The residents won’t
be living on the new development in isolation, they will commute, shop, go to school and
will put more pressure on already overstretched facilities.
Even if this Developer ( like Countryside ) carry out a Traffic Assessment it will only be based on the level of domestic traffic it develops – when the ‘Estate’ is complete , that is’nt the worst case.
The greatest impact on local roads will be Construction traffic ( for 10 years ) because the vehicles involved are larger & heavier than domestic traffic and over the period
there will be far more ‘movements’ – in fact every single item of materials and every member of the workforce will travel to ( and from ) the site by road, the workforce at
rush hours.
The responsibility for this rests with RDC , they are elected to act in the best interest of the electorate – not considering the worst case Traffic Assessment would be negligent on their part.
PLEASE MAKE THIS POINT IN YOUR OBJECTIONS.
Jim @ 1 . One fact that MUST be clearly made is that ALL HEAVY CONSTRUCTION TRAFFIC must use Rawreth Lane and negotiate the mini roundabout at Rawreth Lane/Hullbridge Road because of Watery Lane weight restrictions.(When it is open). Another issue that perhaps Rawreth PC might not have a problem with but in the interest of fairness they should address is the following:- much of the Hullbridge development will be in Rawreth Parish so they will receive the precept (share of funding from Council tax) in relation to the homes but Hullbridge, due to the location on the very edge of the Parish boundaries, will have to provide the facilities. I have not seen any change proposed in the two parish boundaries in the current review. I could be wrong.
Linda you are right to bring the precept problem up .It is one we have been wrestling with ,hence our concern with community cohesion.We were asked that question at Wednesday’s meeting our hearts said no ,it will obviously have to be resolved .Studying the map carefully it does actually show that the big majority of the Developement is within Hullbridge .What has shown up is that the Developers did not show the boundary on their extensive propoals.They destroy the northern ancient hedgerow which is the parish boundary. We also face the same problems in East Rawreth as it will take enormous effort to attract loyalty to the Parish.We will try but we are becoming lop sided with two distinct environments .
Alistair @ 3. I understand. It can get very lonely when you are so certain you are reviewing all this manipulation of the rules with some degree of honesty and honour only to come up against those that have no idea of the concepts.