The infrastructure around Hullbridge is not adequate for an extra 500 houses. There are only three routes out of Hullbridge, Lower Road to the east, Hullbridge Road and Watery Lane to the west. The bulk of commuters out of the village head west. It is already a problem with the traffic. Watery Lane is often flooded, particularly over the winter and is therefore closed regularly - when this happens all traffic has to go via Hullbridge Road, and it can often take upwards of an an hour to get to the end of Rawreth Lane. An extra potential 500 + commuters will only make this worse. There is no provision to increase the travel accessibility out of the village. The route through Lower Road is also used by commuters from Ashingdon, Rochford, Hockley etc heading for Chelmsford adding to the problem.
As mentioned above Watery Lane often floods, as do the fields on which the development is situated. Houses in adjacent roads, Abbey Road, Abbey Close and Monksford Drive often have water in their gardens, and a number of properties in Monksford Drive have had subsidence problems presumably caused by water saturation.
The current shopping facilities would not sustain the increase in population, thus this would entail more traffic in and out of Hullbridge to necessitate the buying of provisions.
The doctors' Surgery will not be able to provide an adequate service for the increase in population which would result in a longer wait for appointments and not being able to provide adequate care.
The local primary and secondary schools will not be able to accommodate the children. Again traffic would also be increased in parents transporting children to schools further afield.
The increase in population would put a tremendous strain in Hullbridge which presently has so many problems which will only be exacerbated, especially the flooding which will be made worse by an increased mass of concretre and non-porous material..