The Public Speaks

February

10

0 comments

Before Christmas , the District Council carried out a major consultation on the the future development of our district. Several hundred residents responded and you can download it all from the District Council website here. There’s a lot to read – the complete document has 190 pages of comments!

Here are just a few comments that caught our eye (which we don’t necessarily support ourselves ):

Please stop holding on to the past and look to the future and embrace our neighbours and their requirements, which actually are yours ring road is a priority

Thank you for this opportunity to pass on my thoughts. I also hope someone will read itand not just place it in some dark and dank archive for the next fifty years.

I think Rochford Council should be looking at the people of the areas and not the money it might make. I have lived in the area for more than 40 years and as far as I can see the Council has just put up rates year in year out and nothing has changed. Do something for the people? We are the rate payers. Stop development in our area. My road, Golden Cross Road was a quiet country road when I moved here, it is now the road to hell with all the mad drivers and 4 roads all off our road over 150 houses. You want to do something, do something for this area, stop building.

The area doesn’t have the infrastructure to expand. During rush hours all five roads to the West are gridlocked, the two railways are dangerously overcrowded. We need to build a bridge across the Crouch somewhere between Fambridge and Wallasea and another across the Thames from Canvey. Until we get a more enlightened National Government I suggest
you use delaying tactics. Call meetings, form discussion groups, conduct surveys. I expect you will need a few years to examine this core strategy questionnaire.

I have lived in Rayleigh since 1956. The green belt that seperated Rayleigh from Hockley, Eastwood, Hullbridge, Wickford is fast disappearing. To retain the Rochford heritage we need to carefully consider what can be lost for the sake of development. Look at work trends – short weeks, flexible hours – working from home – video conferencing, do we really need to expand when business is changing. Could we not stay ahead of the game by predicting less roads required – less new business sites and more and more people stay at home to work or travel at different times (not rush hour)

With reference to the attached questionnaire the problem I have is that with all the building that has gone to you quote a figure of 900 homes so far no extra facilites have been created in fact a school in Rawreth Lane has been pulled down and a leisure complex and housing built so in short before any further building work is started I would like to know what you plan to do regarding more Dentists, Doctors, Schools, Hospitals, Fire Stations, the A127 and A13 get clogged with traffic for long periods durnig the week the roads agency or what ever they call themselves now don’t help by closing roads completely at the drop of a hat after an accident on Health and safety grounds so if you create the jobs how is the product to be transported around the country in a sensible time frame millions of pounds now are wasted by vehicles in jam’s. Affordable housing, I don’t understand exactly what ths is I understand that labour costs have halved with the influx of EU citizens and I undersand most building sites are flooded with cheap labour which must mean costs have come down and inturn house

Please remember every time more housing is built, schools, doctors and travelling facilities are needed. Why keep building retirement homes, just trying to bundle us oldies into square boxes into what look like “leper colonies” just isn’t on. Build places for the youngsters, their need is greater.

We are informed by our national newspapers in recent times, there is in the region of 680,000 homes left empty. 300,000 of these have stood unoccupied for over 6 months. Is there a housing shortage? More I suspect a contrived shortage. It looks like housing developers have a vested interest assisted by some dilatory local authorities. Local authorities have the
power of compulsory purchase. When are they going to use it? The derelict site of Dr Jones’ old house in Southend Road, Hockley and Hawkwell border is a fine example of sitting doing nothing. Shortage of land, shortage of housing. Don’t make me laugh.

Hello, I’m a human being – I live in this area please treat me as though I have some intelligence, do not tell me ‘central government has set Rochford the requirement to construct 4,600 homes by 2021’ without telling me why? Why my area requires 4600 homes, or about 9000 cars 12,000 people. How the hell do these numbers improve my life in this area, or
those of my friends or families? Rochford Council is elected by us suckers to represent us not to represent central government! In that respect I think it’s about time the council showed some balls and told central government that Essex – especially our corner of Essex – is FULL.

I feel strongly that Rawreth Lane area has already reached its absolute capacity. Schools, Services and Roads are at breaking point – Build 3 plus bedroomed properties there will be at least 2 children per household you closed Park School to build houses. Traffic try getting along Rawreth Lane/Hullbridge Road/Downhall between 7.30-9am 4-6pm. Poor bus route –
no room to breath. Why not use land on new road between Hall Road and Aviation Way and Tesco’s NO TO A NEW TOWN! London Road area is also FULL


No land should be released from Green Belt in the Rayleigh area, over 600 houses have already been builtin the Rawreth part of Rayleigh.

No more green belt land should be built on. Rochford specifically is big enough and further expansion would spoil such a nice place to live. Definitely no to a new town.


Larger housing sites will completely destroy the character of this area. It will end up joining one town/village to another thus swallowing up the essential gaps that exist at the moment. We believe these houses should be fairly spread throughout the district with added/improved schools, health facilities and shops to benefit the outlying villages as well as the larger 3 areas.

There is no wy I can afford anything bigger than a beach hut on my skilled agricultural wages. Demand is exceeding supply. Tax second homes HARD. New builds houses are awfull my two siblings live in newbuilds and they are cheap houses at expensive prices. There seems to be no shortage of houses for footballers/millionaires/lottery winners/criminals, nowhere
for me though. Key workers? We are ALL key workers!

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