Healthcare facilities are at breaking point and the housing that was proposed in the last local plan hasn’t even been finished yet and there is no further provision to support the housing in this previous plan. The hospitals are now on WHITE alert (a new category invented to show the highest it has ever been). There is a 4-5 hour wait for an ambulance to unload at Southend Hospital and we are having to draft in Ambulance staff in from Thurrock, Mid Essex and further afield (like Hereford!!!). Our hospital capacity is currently EXCEEDING Oct/Nov levels (and this is not even due to COVID). The health service cannot cope. People can’t get a doctors appointment for weeks and weeks. Mental health support is broken and there very little provision for the people that need it that are already living here. And you want to bring another 7,000 new homes to area.

Where are our new doctors surgeries, day surgery units, dentists, new primary schools, new roads? We have had nothing despite all the new housing development that has gone on in Rayleigh in the last 30+ years. We are at breaking point.

Rochford doesn’t even have its own 6th form college for kids that want more vocational training post GCSE qualification. Our kids have to go out of the area. Since teenagers now have to stay in education until 18 the only provision made in the district is 6th classes in the current schools but there is nothing for those that prefer more hands on or more skilled training. Transport to Seevic is overloaded. Where is our 6th form college?