For those wo may have seen my letter to the local press about Basildon Council’s Local Development Framework, specifically may have read it in The Enquirer, here’s the FULL text of the letter….

Dear Sir

Basildon Borough Council is currently consulting on its plans to regenerate Basildon Town Centre and on the Preferred Options for its Local Development Framework.

At full council Borough Councillors were given just 5 minutes to comment on the latter, proposals of huge significance for the future of the borough. I was criticised for the narrowness of my comments by restricting myself, as I did in the short time available, to the concerns which from my perspective most profoundly affect the communities I represent, namely those within the Nethermayne Ward.

These concerns centre on the proposal in each of the three Preferred Options to develop the land formerly known as “The Land North of Dry Street” and now designated the “Nethermayne Cluster”. Each option promotes the building of at least 850 homes, approximately half the size of the Lee Chapel South Community, on land which for the most part is designated a Local Wildlife Site (LOWs) and falls within the Langdon Hills Living Landscape, and contains also a much used equestrian centre. The land serves also as an important buffer between the existing urban community and the farmland, nature reserves, country parks and Sites of Special Scientific Interest that are either adjacent or in close proximity.

There are also serious issues of infrastructure: road congestion at Basildon Hospital and implications for emergency vehicles, town centre access, school capacity and medical facilities, some of which are acknowledged but not addressed to any meaningful extent.

Basildon Borough Council abandoned its attempts to include this area of land in the Green Belt and they, together with the Homes and Communities Agency now seem determined to consign it to the bulldozer.  One of the principal “Key Drivers for Change” of the report includes “Protecting and enhancing the Borough’s built and natural assets, landscapes and heritage & achieving sense of place” and its vision declares that by 2031 “The Green Belt and countryside will have been protected enhanced (sic) through land management and environmental improvements;”.

I leave it to your readers to set what store they can by this statement but would suggest that the vision of  at least 850 houses for the Local Wildlife Site and Living Landscape that is the Nethermayne Cluster does not bode well for other such environmentally sensitive areas within the borough.

Whatever your readers’ opinions I would urge those resident in Basildon to take advantage of the opportunity to comment on this important stage of the Local Development Framework process that runs till April 11th. It is the only meaningful opportunity so to do.

Yours sincerely,