It’s about time we mentioned that last Tuesday the District Council approved its core strategy.
None of the parties had a whip, and the voting went like this:
Most councillors felt they had to approve the core strategy , as otherwise they felt every part of the district would be open to developers. So all of the Tories present, plus June Lumley from the Lib Dems, voted for it.
Some councillors abstained. They felt that we needed a core strategy, but believed that some locations for housing were so poorly chosen that they couldn’t vote for it. These were John and Christine Mason from the Rochford Residents, plus Chris Black and Chris Lumley from the Lib Dems. Chris Lumley in particular spoke out very sternly about the impact that new development would have on London Road.
The Green councillors – Michael and Diane Hoy – voted against, largely because of the impact that the strategy would have on Hullbridge. (Chris Black said that if he was a Hullbridge councillor, he would have voted against as well).