The Revised East Of England Plan

The Revised East of England Plan is published today. You can download it here (3.5 Megabytes)

The report is 131 pages long , and there’s a lot to absorb. It deals with the governments proposals for housing, employment, transport etc. in the next 13-17 years.

Rochford is not one of the main centres for housing growth in the East of England region, though Basildon and Southend are.

The main centres are

Basildon
Bedford / Kempston / Northern Marston Vale
Bury St Edmunds
Cambridge
Chelmsford
Colchester
Great Yarmouth
Harlow
Hatfield and Welwyn GC
Hemel Hempstead
Ipswich
King?s Lynn
Lowestoft
Luton / Dunstable / Houghton Regis & Leighton Linslade
Norwich
Peterborough
Southend-on-Sea
Stevenage
Thetford
Thurrock urban area
Watford


In terms of housing for Essex, it says:

District/ Housing Target/ Already Built / Still to be Built (average per year)

Basildon / 10,700 / 1,220 / 9,480 (630)
Braintree / 7,700 / 3,360 / 4,340 (290)
Brentwood / 3,500 / 920 / 2,580 (170)
Castle Point / 4,000 / 1,010 / 2,990 (200)
Chelmsford / 16,000 / 3,570 / 12,430 (830)
Colchester / 17,100/ 4,640 / 12,460 (830)
Epping Forest/ 3,500 / 1,210/ 2,290 (150)
Harlow / 16,000 / 810 / 15,190
Maldon / 2,400 / 750 / 1,650 (110)

Rochford / 4,600 / 810 / 3,790 (250)

Tendring / 8,500 / 2,110 / 6,390 (430)
Uttlesford / 8,000 / 1,610/ 6,390 (430)
Southend UA / 6,500 / 2,130/ 4,370 (290)
Thurrock UA / 18,500 / 4,250 / 14,250 (950)

Essex, Thurrock / 127,000 28,380 / 98,620
and Southend (6,580)

There is also a very ambitious target for job creation:

POLICY E1: Job Growth
The following indicative targets for net growth in jobs for the period 2001-2021 are adopted as reference values for monitoring purposes and guidance for regional and local authorities:

Bedford / Mid Beds 27,000
Luton / South Beds 23,000
Bedfordshire & Luton 50,000
Cambridgeshire 75,000
Peterborough 20,000
Essex Thames Gateway (Thurrock / Basildon /
Castle Point /Southend-on-Sea / Rochford) 55,000

Essex Haven Gateway (Colchester / Tendring) 20,000
Rest of Essex (Braintree / Brentwood / Chelmsford /
Epping Forest / Harlow / Maldon / Uttlesford) 56,000
Essex & Unitaries 131,000
Hertfordshire 68,000
King?s Lynn & West Norfolk 5,000
Great Yarmouth 5,000
Breckland 6,000
North Norfolk 4,000
Greater Norwich (Norwich / Broadland / S Norfolk) 35,000
Norfolk 55,000
Suffolk Haven Gateway (Ipswich / Suffolk Coastal / Babergh) 30,000
Waveney 5,000
Rest of Suffolk (Mid Suffolk / St Edmundsbury / Forest Heath) 18,000
Suffolk 53,000
EAST OF ENGLAND 452,000

As we said, there is a lot of information to absorb here, and the report was only published today. It looks as if the small print will be very important, the district council may be compelled to accept some kind of an increase in the previous housing figures, but things are not clear yet.

We’ll write some more when things do become clearer, and we will stay pretty neutral in our comments until then.

UPDATE: Here is an image of one of the tables in the plan:

Photobucket

About the author, admin

  • A couple of questions spring to mind from reading your summary above:

    1) For the house building figures, what date do the “already built” figures start from?

    2) Relating to the job creation target of 55,000, how does this figure fit in with the housing provision? Are they going to be filled by people already living in the area in their own home, people already living in the area but are looking to buy a home, or people who will move to the area to take one of the jobs. Are these new jobs going to cause an upward revision of the housing numbers as people move into the area to fill them?

    I guess my second question can equally be applied to the projected new housing numbers, are the new houses required for people living in the area but not currently owning their own home, or for projected numbers of people looking to move into the region.

  • ST1 – I’ve uploaded one of the tables, which shows the ‘already built’ date starts in 2001.

    My understanding is that the housing numbers won’t be further increased by the employment target- the aim is to create local jobs for live here, either in existing homes or the new homes.

    As for the projected housing numbers, certainly we need some new homes for people in already live in the area but don’t currently have their own place – and some people have argued that there is a local ‘submerged demand’ sufficient to fill all of these new homes, mainly young folk who either live with their parents or are forced to move out of the area.

    But I’m sure that a proportion of the new homes will be bought by newcomers to the area. How big a proportion I’m not sure.

  • {"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}
    >