Charles Trollope, Clay Barn, Fingringhoe, Colchester, Essex, CO5 7AR. Tel :- 01206 735 405. E mail :- [email protected]

Settlement Boundary Review

This Review, as it stands, is not fit for purpose. Those who compiled this report have not taken note of much of what the Housing Ministers have put forward, the Policy Background in this review has not been followed in many cases, there is nothing in this review worth having on affordable housing, the infrastructure requirements have been ignored and the Settlement reviews are full of errors.

The Government requires Councils to have “a much more frank, open discussion with local residents and communities”. When is this to take place?

By making an arbitrary split between what you call Sustainable and other Settlements you have removed the opportunity to build affordable homes in nearly half the local villages and by doing so depriving the local young from living in their local community, forcing them to live in town and leaving their elderly relatives to be looked after by the Council at rate payers expense. This is straight out of Soviet Russia!

The need for infrastructure assessments and improvements has been ignored. It is proposed to build 1000 houses on the Middlewick Ranges but there is nothing in the provisions re widening the Mersea Road from St Botolphs roundabout to the South, as proposed some 60+ years ago. Without this improvement it will be gridlock. The new housing to the North is going to produce gridlock at the Station.

With all this new housing Colchester will need a larger Hospital but the present hospital is short of staff now and car parking is almost impossible now.

Water problems at West Tey have not been thought through. The surface run off from one inch of rain, when the land is saturated during the winter, will leave the site awash and with nowhere for the water to go. All this extra water must go into the Roman River which will not be able to cope. The extra flow, now, is causing flooding down river.

In Paragraph 4 the methodology that was to be followed when reviewing villages is set out. Quite clearly this did not happen, the reviews are a shambles and I will demonstrate this by looking at what is said about Fingringhoe.

(a) “The land to the North is within the flood zone”. The houses at sites 238 and 239 are on the 15 meter contour. The council has approved housing sites below that level at Rowhedge Warf (b) “Sewage Drainage – Existing facilities at Fingringhoe Sewage Treatment Works at capacity”. If this is a reason for restricting house building in Fingringhoe, why are 55 houses to be approved at Abberton, which will use the same treatment works?

(c) “Located some distance from Secondary School” is given as an adverse reason. Secondary School children from Fingringhoe go by bus to school and have done so for 60+ years. If this is a reason to restrict new housing why are 200 houses being proposed for West Mersea at twice the distance from the Secondary Schools? (d) “Seek to prevent coalescence of both halves” None of the sites would create coalescence. (e) “Seek to prevent further ribbon development”. Ribbon development continues to the West of plot 136. (f) “Seek to discourage development that would not representa logical or sensible extension to an existing built up area”, Plot 136 backs on to the Dudley Road housing estate. (g) “Fingringhoe School is forecast to have a surplus of only 5 places in 2019/20”. Only half the places in the school are taken up by children from the village. There is plenty of room for local village children. 55 houses are scheduled for Abberton where the school is over full now. (h) “Expansion South of Abberton Road ----no land within this area has been promoted for housing”. Plot 136 lies South of Abberton Road and has been put forward. (i) “Parish Council do not support any of the sites”. This statement is completely untrue. The Parish Council having looked at all the plots recommended plot 136. I spoke to the Parish Chairman two days ago and nothing has changed. See also my letter to the Planners dated 28 November 2011. (j) RSE15 “Development of the site would extend the village too far west”. Who so ever wrote this piece has no idea where the parish boundary to the West is. The East end of the ribbon development in Abberton Road, Langenhoe is in fact in Fingringhoe Parish. Also there are some 40 houses to the West of Dudley Road not including those attached to Abberton Road Langenhoe. If this site is too large then make it smaller.

Who so ever put this review of Fingringhoe together clearly started with the decision not to allow any building of affordable housing in the village and then tried to find reasons to support this position. This is bad practice and unprofessional. This review requires complete rewriting. I understand that other village have received similar unprofessional reviews.

I started by saying that this Settlement Boundary Review was not fit for purpose. It needs to be re-written in its entirety.

Charles Trollope 9 August 2017