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In the not to distant future the potentially massive development London Southend Airport will have a dramatic impact on the existing road networks. This will not only result in an increase of passenger and freight traffic on our overcrowded roads, there will also have to be capacity for the 7000 personnel entering new jobs that will be created.
Can anything be so unsound as this! To enter such a period of expansion in people, and ultimately road traffic, without a structured and achievable plan is absolutely ludicrous.
Linked to the subject of 7000 new jobs at the airport, I raise again the proposal for 1020 new dwellings in Rawreth. It has been suggested by RDC that many of the new employees will need new accommodation and to achieve low levels of car use it would be sensible to provide dwellings in close proximity to the workplace thus enabling employees to walk or cycle to work.
This being the case, the proposed 'North of London Road' Rawreth site is eight miles from the airport and I would suggest that in general the car would be the method of commuting. Here again commuters would have to use the inadequate west to east routes.
Surely workforce dwellings should be within about two miles radius of the workplace to reduce traffic capacity and currently there are a number of areas to the north and north east of the airport to accommodate this. It may mean that some farmland and plotlands in the areas of Rochford and Ashingdon would have to be used but these are better suited to minimise traffic problems and could spare the need to erode the natural green belt between Rayleigh and the A130 trunk road at Rawreth.