Dear Councillor Simon Wooton,

I hope you are well and a belated congratulations for being voted in leader of Rochford District Council last July.

I purposely write to you as a person of leadership for my area and with genuine interest of your views, given someone in your position will naturally do your very best to put resident interests (amongst other things) at the heart of everything.

I’m namely reaching out to you in relation to the identified or proposed plans for new housing development.

Before I go on, I feel for integrity I should briefly introduce myself and explain what has compelled me to write to you. I’m Jason McGinley, a 47 year old who moved to the Hawkwell area back in 2002/3, I am married, have 3 children (mostly grown up now) and have my Dad living close by. The reason I moved here was to find more space, tranquility, good schooling and the green space. The pace of life here back in 2002/3 was much slower and quieter than I was used to but was just what we looking for, and we integrated quickly and very much appreciated the qualities of local community life and living.

I’m not a man of erratic views or knee-jerk decisions and want for nothing in the main. However, I’ve found myself thinking over the last few years that perhaps it’s time to move on to somewhere which offers what we found here back in 2002/3. The area in ‘some’ ways has developed out of all recognition and has become an area with different dynamics, with seemingly many more people and car traffic and now feels quite claustrophobic and restrictive – feelings which my last area were reminiscent of.

So with introductions out the way, I understand plans seem to include over 6,200 houses across 6 sites with others involved in addition. I’m also mindful of the considerable amount of new housing already developed over last number of years and observe just from them along, a distinct lack of new supporting services / shops / road access - notwithstanding the impact to existing services in the surrounding areas. Specifically on the ‘past’ element effect, I’ve tried not to use the roads at all during weekends due to the traffic congestion stress it brings to me on a personal level.

Before I try to summarise business type reasons of concern, I’m conscious that this type of issue is 1 of many part of the bigger plan you’re responsible for. I also understand that for every past there’s also a present and a future, which requires a lot of balancing, thought and change, Having said all that, I do think there’s a lot of overlap across multiple touch-points, including decision making, and for that reason I’d like to really ‘pick-your-brains’ on the wider view and challenges or pressures you have to factor in to decisions.

For me it’s crucial to understand and differentiate between the directives you’re working to against viable options specific to our district – I’m sure this is something that most residents would have empathy on too?

On the ‘overlap’ I referred to, budget is a big one, as is climate and environment, younger generation, core services and local business. Being in business myself, naturally I can see benefit from creating efficiencies and making strategic decisions which embed and have sustainable impact. Personally I have lots of ideas around both, and am more than happy to impart these as part of resident feedback – should there be good reason to.

I genuinely am really interested to hear the challenges for our district and how you have to balance and manage these as part of a local and central Govt plan, including any personal thoughts presuming you’re a local resident too.

Back to the new housing point, the main aspects of concern or interest are:

1) Road traffic and lack of road infrastructure to deal with this – personally speaking, I can’t even see or understand how implementing new road space will even impact or help with this issue, for example the road in and out of Rayleigh through to Rochford and beyond just can’t cope anymore and neither would the main roads like A127 – we’re simply at ‘tipping point’.
Beyond the local access, those outside our district would find it near impossible to access what our area has to offer without extreme delay or difficulty.

2) Lack of new support services and shops / or impact to existing – such as supermarkets, doctors, hospitals, dentists, car parking, park space, exercise space, public transport and public houses. I often find which situations like this, you hear about conceptual ideas and promises without analysis of numbers before/future and real thought to how this will truly affect these things without having those who work or live on the ground in or near these things.

3) Population – whilst this relates to points 1) and 2) coming back to the qualities and dynamics the area offered back in 2002/3 versus what it’s like now, it just seems that there’s now too many people for what the area can deal with. I’m inclusive but this is something different to simply preferring it less busy.

4) Air pollution / Climate / Environment – for me this all overlaps and whilst more housing will bring more diversity, I just cannot see how for any of these points we will be in a better position ‘locally’, rather the opposite. Any statistical development analysis over last 5 or 10 years would be useful, against what locally and centrally we’re trying to achieve in this space and how more housing will align to the ambition.

5) Green Space / Flooding – again I think this overlaps. Much of the local beauty and attraction is the green space and all that it offers for wildlife and people alike, yet we keep taking it up more and more with concrete. Additionally, the flooding aspect as result and impact to utility service disruption i.e. blockage/flooding. To me this is alarming from both a future risk point of view and personal experiences namely from blocked drains causing both flooding and polluted flooding (from faeces) – which has become much more frequent. Ultimately I presume this is a shared risk for local Council services, budget and disruption too.

6) Youth – there seems to have been a lack of Council driven effort to generate new ideas or services which positively engage youth and the younger generation. This is an aspect I’ve spoken about for years too. There seems to be a whole range of opportunities but possibly a lack of budget, insight or plan to develop it. Additionally, it seems we now live in a world of such heavy compliance / regulation / and process, that bringing these types of things to life take extraordinary time and cost with incredible inefficiency – making them then quite un-attractive to take up. Also getting the right people involved is crucial to success.

7) Crime – I really don’t know the statistics here but do know on experience that it has become a much more frequent occurrence in recent years versus when we first move here. As result, I’m keen to hear what is planned in this regard if thousands of new residents arrive?


I recently saw a Rochford District Council report from 2018 on additional dwelling plans between 2010 – 2025, and attach a screen shot below. In reflection my immediate thoughts were:

• Planned 3,750 dwellings in a 15 year period (2010-2025) versus:

now in 2021 adjusted plans suggest ‘additional’ 6,236 dwellings across 6 sites alone, which seems a huge uplift in comparison?

• How policy can change from 1 year to another completely affecting previous plans
• What additional new dwellings have been developed in the interim period 2018 – 2021
• There were 33,600 dwellings in 2011, how many are there in 2021
• The 2021 Census doesn’t seem to be accessible yet?

I also found a Population chart (per below) which whilst has steadily grown from 2002 – 2018 by 7,656, it seems comparatively fair in relation to new dwellings, which using the above chart (from 2018) of 3,750 new dwellings there were 3,887 additional in population. One could suggest then, that this was driven mainly be ‘new housing’ more than anything else?

I remain interested in your response but for completeness and timing have also copied in the ‘SpatialOptions’ team. Please let me know if you prefer to arrange a face-to-face meeting as part of any response, or, feel free to call me too.