I am writing to you in connection with the Rochford District Council (RDC) proposals to update the district's Local Plan, which I understand are designed to take it forward by some 20 years, out to 2037. I am writing specifically in response to your Issues and Options document and I would be grateful if you would regard this letter as my formal response to the consultation.

The Rochford District Council area, which covers a considerable part of my constituency of Rayleigh and Wickford, is a pleasant place to live, with a good quality of life and a high proportion of Green Belt. Clearly, we do need to provide some additional housing over the next two decades, not least to allow the next generation somewhere to live. However, it is important that any development takes place on a sustainable basis, so as not to overly affect the quality of life of existing residents.

In this regard I have heard a figure of 7,500 new dwellings mentioned (at the upper end of estimates) and I think that this is probably too many for the district to bear. I would hope to see this number come down as the process evolves.

Critically, I believe that we should not countenance any major development in the district without the necessary infrastructure improvements being guaranteed to go with them. This includes issues such as the development where necessary of additional roads, schools and also the upgrading of our medical infrastructure, including GP surgeries and hospital places. On the latter point, I have recently responded to the Sustainability and Transformation Plan Consultation for the Mid and South Essex area of the NHS and in that response I did urge that NHS leaders should start planning now for further expansion of capacity at both Southend and Basildon Hospitals, in order to accommodate future house building, such as is envisaged in your own consultation.

In addition, experience shows that house builders who develop in the district tend to do so at a considerable profit and it has often been a difficult and time consuming process to persuade them to make adequate contributions in terms of Section 106 Agreements and such like to the local community, in return for permission to build. I do believe that house builders need to be firmly held to account on these issues and that the Council should be robust in ensuring that profitable house builders make sufficient and timely contributions to the extra infrastructure that will be required by the developments they create.

At present the Council has a policy that around one third of properties in new developments should be affordable homes and that priority in the allocation of socially rented housing should be given to local people. I think it is important to continue this policy going forward, not least to try and give local young people an opportunity to find somewhere to live.

Whilst writing, I should report that I recently received a delegation on behalf of several Residents Associations in my constituency, who came to see me at my constituency surgery with regard to the Council's evolving Local Plan. In essence, they believe that most of the new development in the district should be based around a new 'garden village' somewhere to the eastern end of the district, thus concentrating most of the new house building in one area, where it might be easier to provide local infrastructure improvements on the scale necessary. I remain open minded about this idea but think that it may yet merit further examination.

In summary, I appreciate that we need some new houses for the next generation but I am very clear that this should only be permitted when the requisite improvements in infrastructure can be guaranteed. As the local Member of Parliament I will continue to take a close interest in this process as it plays out and I look forward to receiving your response to the consultation exercise in due course.