There’s an important event taking place in the Council Chamber this week and next. A government inspector is carrying out a public examination into the District Council’s Core Strategy for future development. The examination starts at 10 am each morning.
If you asked a few months ago to speak you can do so, otherwise you can only watch and listen.
Today’s session was for local campaign groups and small landowners to make their points – and there were about 15 people there to speak , a mixture of professional planners, local campaigners and councillors (John Mason and Chris Black from Rochford DC, plus parish councillors Alistir Matthews and Myra Weir). New councillor Michael Hoy sat in the public area and observed.
We all made points about particular local concerns for Rawreth and Hullbridge, Hockley, Hawkwell , Rochford etc. But those of us present gernerally felt that :
a) more smaller sites should have been considered instead of just big ones.
b) the District Council may have complied with the legal requirements for for public consultation but they still weren’t good enough
and
c) the council needed to provide further evidence to explain how it had come to its conclusions.
Would any onlinefocus readers who are attending like to add some comments, either on today’s proceedings or those on future days?