Rawreth Parish Council gives 8 reasons to oppose the proposed housing in the parish on their website here.
Here’s the key points:
Rawreth presently has 373 dwellings and to put in developments of 1050 houses which equates to a 228% increase is totally unjustifiable, unsustainable and would completely destroy the character of Rawreth.
The huge development of 650 houses ?North of London Road? Rawreth is totally unacceptable. This land is good quality agricultural land which is protected by the Green Belt ?GB1 – fulfils all purposes under PPG2 and should be retained as such. Once used for development this land can never be returned to agricultural use, and if you continue to erode into our Green Belt and farmland it will be lost forever.
This particular area is part of the ?Gateway to Rochford ? and is the ?strategic buffer? between Rayleigh and Wickford. Reference is made in the document to ?avoiding coalescence? of villages/towns – a development of this size immediately erodes this buffer, starts coalescence and destroys the rural character of Rawreth.
The document clearly states that ?Brownfield? sites would be considered before Green Belt land is used.
The A127, A1245, A129 London Road, Rawreth Lane and Watery Lane just cannot take any more traffic and this proposed development will increase traffic to a completely unsustainable level. On three occasions in the last month alone, incidents within and on the outskirts of this area have brought traffic to a standstill for hours along London Road, Rawreth Lane, Watery Lane/Beeches Road and the Hullbridge Road. It took some residents 1 ? hours to proceed along Rawreth Lane and into Hullbridge ? a distance of 1 ? miles. The proposed development at the western edge of Hullbridge, which is, in fact, largely in Rawreth would also greatly increase the traffic problems in the area.
The Services in the area would be unable to cope with this increase in housing ? drains and sewers are already working to capacity. Recent heavy rain resulted in flooding in Watery Lane and the Rawreth Brook system has been very close to flooding twice already this year. During a meeting between the Parish Council and the Environment Agency we were advised that this situation will worsen with increased housing.
We believe that the appropriate amount of additional housing should be built on smaller existing sites thus enhancing the lives and environment of existing residents.
Large numbers of housing in one area, as stated in the infrastructure requirements, will necessitate a new primary school. County figures suggest that there will be surplus places in Rayleigh schools even with new housing. Obviously these will be in the wrong parts of the town so increasing the risk that an existing school could close .It makes sense to spread the development in smaller sites around the town, avoiding closure and preventing unnecessary provision of a new school.