I have made some submissions to your local plan consultation on behalf of the Woodland Trust, using your online consultation portal.

I flagged up in our online submission that we have concerns about the impact which some of your site allocations may have on ancient woods or on ancient/veteran trees and I said I would send information on these separately by email, so see attached table. You can see from the table that in some cases we are concerned about proximity to ancient woods or trees and in such cases we would ask for a buffer strip to be included of at least 50 metres before development is allowed to proceed. In other cases, we believe there may be actual loss of habitat and so we would urge that these allocations be withdrawn or significantly amended.

We have guidance on ancient woodland and ancient/veteran trees in our Planners Manual which can be found on our website at https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/publications/2019/06/planners-manual-for-ancient-woodland and we would ask that you refer to this document when considering our submissions regarding these site allocations.

[see attached document - list of sites of concern with proximity to ancient woodland (within or adjacent) as follows:]

CFS068 Land at Lower Wyburns farm, to the south of Daws Heath Road, Rayleigh Rayleigh Adjacent WT Lower Wyburns (grid reference: TQ812895)
CFS023 Land north and east of Malvern Road, Hockley Hockley Adjacent Beckney Wood ASNW (grid reference: TQ8468693935)
CFS062 Land north of Lambourne Hall Road, Canewdon Canewdon Adjacent WT Paddock Copse (grid reference: TQ906946)
CFS134 Land between Eastwood Rise and Rayleigh Avenue, Eastwood Rayleigh Adjacent New England Wood ASNW (grid reference: TQ8336190291)
CFS160 Northlands Farm, 65 High Road, Hockley Hockley Within Hockley Woods ASNW (grid reference: TQ8256791923)
CFS045 Belchamps Scout Site, Holyoak Lane, Hawkwell Hawkwell Within Hockley Woods ASNW (grid reference: TQ8412091789)
GF01 Land north west of Hockley Station Hockley Adjacent Maryland’s Wood ASNW (grid
reference: TQ8375192993)
CFS064 Land north and east of Folly Chase, Hockley Hockley Adjacent Betts Wood ASNW (grid reference: TQ8331992870)
COL20 Civic Suite, Hockley Road, Rayleigh Rayleigh Within Veteran Common Sycamore (ATI no: 11502) at grid reference: TQ80849087