NEW LOCAL PLAN my views

We are being overwhelmed with new-build houses. The selling price of these houses is beyond the reach of nearly all constituents of Rochford District and their relatives and friends.

As a result of this over-building, our environment is suffering gross pollution (not only from cars): I myself suffer from a lung infection and my only way of preventing further decline in health is to move away from the area. I chose to move to Hawkwell in 1963 when I could walk across the main road (B1013) without even looking; this remained the case for about 15 years when I moved away to live in South Woodham Ferrers.

Subsequently I moved back to Hawkwell in 1999 to find Hawkwell had changed only a little but this was to change radically in the next 12 years. In the past 5 years, traffic and pollution have increased 4-fold. It sometimes takes 10 minutes to pull out of my driveway onto the road due to traffic, a lot of which is only 'passing through' and should properly be using the A127! The road congestion cannot be avoided and with it comes pollution.

Councils are being blackmailed by Parliament to build regardless of the cost to our health and well-being. Our MPs are failing us. They have not stood together and said: "stop", they must now do so.

About 6 years ago, in response to the request of Hawkwell Parish Council and in conjunction with other concerned parishioners, we produced the Hawkwell Parish Plan (copies were handed to Rochford District Council members) showing what it was that Hawkwell parishioners wanted; to get a good idea of what was need in 2012 and beyond, it is necessary to read the conclusions of the plan. It was not necessary to build very many houses - the need was for hundreds and not the thousands of houses which are being built now: all this latter does is to encourage people to move out of London to live in Rochford District, it does not improve or even maintain the lot of our existing parishioners.

It is my view that those elected to serve the community are failing us badly in all aspects of local life here; this applies at government, county and district levels.