The spatial options consultation will come forward for public consultation in the next week or so, we are led to believe. This will be another important step towards the development of the new local plan and residents should really be ready to respond to this as this will look at where new (and probably the most Controversial) housing will be built in the future.
“Infrastructure first” is the rhetoric we’ve heard many times by the Tory administration, but during the meeting last Tuesday, Cllr Michael Hoy raised it again as this consultation will be put out BEFORE any formal study into infrastructure requirements has been commissioned.
Cllr James Newport, had raised the issue of ensuring all residents were notified of the consultation and had been pushing for a leaflet to ALL households as the only sure-fire way to make sure that no residents were missed. Fortunately, the Conservative administration agreed with this and has now allocated a budget that leaflet(s) will be distributed. We are also pleased that an interactive map has been developed for residents to be able to take a closer look at the sites being put forward for consideration. James used his background in cartography to put forward the idea as a method of engagement with the public.
Now it remains for residents to respond and put across their views at this critical stage of the local plan. There are significant challenges that lay ahead for Councillors to decide upon and we hope that they won’t let history repeat itself as has happened with the Core Strategy and site allocations, otherwise, it could end up with more costly mistakes and unsustainable developments.
Once the consultation is ‘live’ we will post full details on how and where to respond.
What is the scheduled monument? Guess a Covid one. Hope this is not going to be in a site that is going to be developed. If it is Covid one is there any point in a Town Council one as well.
Rayleigh Mount
Is it too late to get the Fairglen “improvement” reconsidered?
That new link road from the southbound A130 to a new traffic light junction on the A1245 is ridiculous, and anyone that uses this stretch of road will know that it will just add to the traffic chaos on an already over-capacity stretch of road.
Far better would be for that link road to be made into a slip road from the southbound A130 onto the eastbound A127, but designed so that it does not allow vehicles that use it to return back onto the Fairglen junction – would require the current off-sliproad from the A127 to the Fairglen to start a little earlier, closer to the A130 fly-over.
This would prevent Southend-bound traffic from the southbound A130 having to use the Fairglen junction at all, whereas the current proposal would send Southend bound A130 traffic onto the Fairglen via the southbound A1245 – and also potentially London-bound traffic through the Fairglen.
Apologies for the wordy description, would be much easier with a few marked up pictures.