The District Council is now consulting the public on its core strategy for development up to 2020 and beyond. This is the strategy that proposes 1800 extra homes in Rayleigh.
You can download the council’s proposals document here, and send comments to the council, here.
You can also make comments after visiting the council’s traveling exhibition on the following days:
Hawkwell Village Hall, Main Road Thursday 31 May 16:30-19:30
Canewdon Village Hall Friday 1 June 17:00-19:00
Ashingdon Memorial Hall, Ashingdon Road Saturday 2 June 14:30-18:30
Hullbridge Parish Council Offices, 98 Ferry Road Wednesday 6 June 16:30-19:30
Rawreth Village Hall car park Thursday 7 June 15:30-19:30
Hockley Parish Council Offices, the Old Fire Station Saturday 9 June 10:00-14:30
Rayleigh Windmill Sunday 10 June 12:00-15:00
Great Wakering Memorial Hall Monday 11 June 16:30-19:30
Rochford WI Hall, Market Square Saturday 16 June 10:30-14:30
One knowledgable old Rayleigh resident has already phoned to say that the Rayleigh Windmill on a Sunday afternoon is a poor place for having lots of passers-by – shouldn’t the council want a lot of Rayleigh people to visit?
Whilst the travelling exhibition isn’t ideal, the online system for making comments looks very good. First of all, you register online, and then you can make comments for each section of the proposals document as you wish.
We hope that lots of onlinefocus’s readers will have a look at these documents and make their comments directly to the council . If you have any questions to us about the councils proposals, feel free to leave them on as a comment on our website here.
One of the key sections is section 4.6.10:
4.6.10 The Council’s preferred options for general development locations are:
The Council will set out a policy detailing a settlement hierarchy split into three tiers based on services and sustainability.
The Council will set out a policy detailing a timescale for the expected phasing of development.
The Council will set out a policy allocating the total number of housing units to the top (90%) and second tier (10%) settlements, to gain a smaller number of large sites which will deliver the greatest amount of infrastructure improvements. The split (with approximate numbers) will be as follows:Housing Units
Completions 2001-2006 900
Rochford / Ashingdon 1000
Hockley / Hawkwell 400
Rayleigh 1800
Smaller settlements 500
This consultation is probably the most important local issue of 2007. Please get involved!