Gypsy and Traveller Sites

I wish to register my objection to the extensive housing development which I understand is being considered in the areas to the west of Rayleigh, between Rawreth Lane and the London Road.

I wish to object to the housing options NLR1 NLR2 NLR3 NLR4 and NLR5. My main objection relates to the increase in traffic on the already congested London Road, and to the pressures on infrastructure such as schools.

I have no wish to object to the proposal for a small traveller site. I would rather live in a society which welcomes people who adopt a lifestyle different to my own. All that I would request is that the traveller community is consulted about the suitability of the location and facilities.

I understand that it is the Council's responsibility to give residents the opportunity to make objections: I looked on the council's website and look regularly in the local paper, but I had not been made aware of this scheme, until now. The Council can hardly be said to have consulted local people, if they have not published details of the scheme in a way which people can access.

Objection to Housing development in Hullbridge and Travellers sites - see paper copies for details.

Objection to housing in Hullbridge.
See paper copy for details.

Objection to Housing development in Hullbridge and the traveller sites - see paper copies for details.

Objection to housing in Hullbridge and Travellers sites. See paper copy for details

I would like to express my objections and concerns around the proposed development plans for the west end of Rayleigh. I appreciate that there is a need for new housing and that your proposals form part of a central government initiative, but there has already been a significant amount of development in this area over the past few years, and there are other brownfield sites in other parts of the district that would more than satisfy the initiative.

Rawreth Industrial Site Development

I have no real objection to the 220 proposed homes being built on what is currenly the Rawreth Industrial Estate, as I can see the reasoning behind it, the fact that it is already developed land means that there will be little impact to the appearance and traffic flow in the area. The only issue real issue I see here is that the local infrastructure may struggle to cope with the additional residents. Currently as you will be aware the local secondary school (Sweyne Park) is oversubscribed at every annual in-take, and this will only become more of an issue as more people move into the area.

If these properties are built on the Rawreth Industrial Estate, the I suggest the only site in the area that should be considered for an alternative employment site would be the area of land at the corner of the A127 and the A1245. This area is perfectly positioned for access to the A127, A1245 and the A130, and will therefore ensure that the majority of industrial traffic is kept away from the already busy A129 and Rayleigh High Street.

Development of additional 550 Homes

I vehemently object to the proposal to develop 550 properties in the area between London Road and Rawreth Lane, which your document has labelled as NLR1, NLR2, NLR3, NLR4 & NLR5 for a number of reasons:

West Rayleigh has has it's fair share of development over the past few years with the development of the Victoria Grange Estate, the Birds Estate, the Little Wheatley Estate, as well as some other smaller developments off the London Road and Louis Drive areas. There has been no new schools, doctor's surgeries etc built to support these developments to date, where as I understand they were promised, so past experience would suggest that the same will apply this time around. This would not be acceptable as the current infrastructure is already stretched.

This development would result in an unnecessary loss of agricultural land.

Part of the area is flood plain, which currently acts as a natual defence for the properties currently on and around London Road, so if this land is built on these properties will inevitably be at greater risk of flooding.

The A129 London Road, and Rayleigh High Street is already busy, and at peak times traffic barely moves. Any further development will only make this worse.

The NLR3 and NLR5 sites are on the land currently occupied by the Rayleigh Town Sports and Social Club, and has been on the current site since 1972 as a lessee of Rochford Council. The club has sports pitches currently used by 8 adult football teams, junior mini soccer teams, 4 adult and three junior cricket teams. Having been involved in junior football myself, I know that there are already insufficient sports faciilities in the local area, so losing this facility as well would be nothing short of scandalous.
The club also has it's own clubhouse which is used by the local community for various social, family and fundraising events, this will be a great loss to the community, which will probably never be replaced.

There is currently a clear green belt boundary which will need to be moved. Once development has taken hold, the boundaries will be increasingly difficult to defend. So my fear is that the whole area will eventually become one huge housing estate. At the moment, as you come into Rayleigh from the Carpenters Arms roundabout you get the sense of countryside which is easy on the eye, this will all be gone if development takes place in this area.

Gipsy and Traveller Sites

I strongy object to the proposal to accommodate Gipsies and Travellers in the West Rayleigh area, there is no real reason to do so as there are other sites, such as the area on the A1245 north of Rayleigh, which are currently occupied that can be legalised. This will bring Rochford district up to quota without creating any further sites.

The GT3 area should not even be given consideration, as once this area becomes occupied and accessible, the surrounding area will inevitably become illegally occupied creating a much larger than intended site. The point mentioned in the document about Gipsies and Travellers being able to integrate with the local community is completely invalid, as they will never want to, and neither will they ever be accepted by the local community. This has been evidenced by the experience of other sites around Essex. The only way integration will ever take place is if the Gipsies and Travellers are situated on single plot sites with reasonable distance between them, and not on larger sites where they will form their own exclusive community.

Therefore I propose that if you do intend to create (unnecessary) additional sites, then you do make them small single plot sites at a number of different locations around the Rochford district.

Objection to housing in Hullbridge and Traveller sites. See paper copy for details.

Objection to housing in Hullbridge and traveller sites. See paper copy for details.

Objection to housing in Hullbridge and Traveller Sites. See paper copy for details.

I am writing in relation to:

1) Proposed building of 550 homes on land "North of London Road"
and
2) Proposed Gypsy/Travellers Sites

I have been advised to write to you in order to obtain a 'Logon' to a specific website to which I will be able to log an objection to both the above mentioned plans.

I'm writing to strongly protest about the proposed housing options; NLR1, NLR2, NLR3, NLR4, NLR5.

I'm writing with protest because the addition of the proposed 770 new homes, several travellers sites and a possible new tesco is too much for the infrastructure to rayleigh town. I appreciate that many new homes are needed and my concerns are for the roads, railway, highstreet and doctors surgeries, schools etc and how all new prospective people will use the current facilities, i use to travel by train into London for work but found the roads were congested and couldnt always get to the station in timedue to the amount of traffic. I know travel by car to london and still have major issues with the sheer weight of traffic in/on london road in the mornings.

In addition to the above points, its a unnecessary loss of agricultural land that would mean once permission had been granted all future applications would have trouble being denied due to previous permission being given.

I request that I am kept informed of future developments/decisions to the above

Objection to the housing in Hullbridge.
See paper copy for details.

Objection to the housing in Hullbridge.
See paper copy for details.

Objection to housing in Hullbridge and traveller sites. See paper copy for details.

Dear Sir/Madam

I have recently received numerous flyers/letters informing me about Rochford councils planned development of 770 new homes in the area of and around Rayleigh, with the inclusion that Rochford council has to find more sites for Travellers within the area.

These flyers state that it is planned to build 550 new homes on the land between Rawreth lane and the London road and a further 220 being built on the current Rawreth industrial estate (meaning that this will have to be relocated). I have today reviewed the planned developments on the council website and note that a number of these involve the land fronting London Road, as I currently live in the bottom end of Rayleigh the London Road is my main route into and out of Rayleigh and this can be extremely busy during rush hour times, the addition of more homes, industrial areas and traveller sites will have a detrimental effect on this already busy area of Rayleigh. In addition to this I cannot see how the infrastructure within the Rayleigh area in able to cope with this additional population as Doctors and Schools in the area are already at what I can see to be maximum limits.

My wife and I wish to formally state our disagreement with these plans.

Objection to housing in Hullbridge and Traveller Sites. See paper copy for details.

Re: Planning for 770 new building and sites for TRAVELLERS in Rayleigh!



We would like to add our utter outrage along with the rest of Rayleigh residents.



We are a small business and do not want it ruined.

Dear Sirs,

I wish to strongly object to your housing options NLR1, NLR2 NLR3, NLR4 and NLR5.

The increase in traffic if these were to go ahead will be intolerable, the loss of agricultural land is awful ( I don't want to live in London where all you see if buildings everywhere), I don't want Rayleigh and Rawreth merged as will be hte case if these were to go ahead.

I am also strongly against your proposals for a travellers site. The crime rate will rocket and goodness knows what will happen to the housing prices because NO ONE will want to live here. If nothing else why are you putting this so close to a school? Who actually thought that would be a good idea???

I have been told there was a 'public consultation' on the above on the 17th March 2010 and I have only just been made aware of this!

Please consider this email my formal notice of my strong disagreement to your plans.

Objection to housing in Hullbridge and Traveller Sites. See paper copy for details.

I would like to make an objection to various proposals for Traveller sites in Rayleigh

Objection to housing in Hullbridge and Traveller Sites. See paper copy for details.

Objection to housing in Hullbridge and Traveller sites. See paper copy for details.

Objection to the traveller site.
See paper copy for details.

Objection to proposed residential and gypsy and traveller allocation of land in Hullbridge.

See paper copy for details.

Objection to proposed residential and gypsy and traveller land allocation in Hullbridge.

See paper copy for details.

Objection to proposed residential and gypsy and traveller allocation of land in Hullbridge.

See paper copy for details.

Objection to proposed residential and gypsy and traveller allocation of land in Hullbridge.

See paper copy for details.

Objection to housing and gypsy site in Hullbridge - see full written response for further details

hi i would just like to add that my wife and i are opposed to any new houses in the rayleigh area due to congestion in traffic this would caues also the thought of having travlers in my area does not fill me with joy one bit.

We wish to submit our OBJECTIONS to some of the proposals presented in the Allocations DPD. We are doing so by email because of the restrictions on the number of words that can be used within the online form.


1. Residential - Options NLR1, 2, 3, 4 and 5



We are very concerned that a large development is proposed for the area north of the London Road, Rayleigh.



1.1 Access to the town centre is already extremely challenging at peak times. A development of 550 homes would increase traffic unacceptably along London Road / Rawreth Lane.



1.2 This area was promised a new school, shops and amenities when the Little Wheatleys Estate was built 30 years ago. These did not materialise. In the intervening 30 years there have been several large scale housing developments in this area but still no additional infrastructure or amenities have been provided. This area cannot sustain any further large scale growth. It is hard to believe that the promised amenities will be built if the council's track record on honouring infrastructure development agreements is a yardstick.



1.3 These options would further erode the green belt and will from experience surely increase the risk of flooding in this area some of which is already in flood zone 3.



1.4 In addition we note that the site of Rawreth Industrial Estate has already been identified in the Urban Capacity Study as suitable for housing use. We also understand that this land will accommodate 220 dwellings. This adds even further weight to our objections to developing the sites NLR 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.



1.5 There are other areas in Rayleigh of a similar size that have more favourable assessment criteria, fewer constraints and less potential impact.



At Appendix 1, sites 29 and 195 are located to the South West of Rayleigh in close proximity to the town centre . As noted in the assessment criteria, they have good access to services, leisure facilities, schools and the highways network. Why were these areas not considered suitable for consultation? Was it because they are close to Great Wheatley Road and Western Road? Analysing the constraints, assessment criteria and potential impact sections these sites would seem to be more suitable that the proposed options NLR1 - 5.



1.6 Why do 550 dwellings have to be built in one area? Surely smaller clusters of houses in different parts of the district will mean less pressure on the existing infrastructure and amenities. It would also reduce additional traffic on already heavily congested highways.



1.7 Why are some areas of the district, for example Canewdon, not included in the housing allocation?








2. Gipsy and Travellers - Options GT1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7



2.1 The plan seems confused about the number of pitches that Rochford District Council is required to provide. The text on page 62 of the DPD indicates that there is a need to provide 11 additional pitches in order to achieve the required total of 18. However options GT1, 2, 5 and 7 would provide at minimum 15 pitches.



2.2 We are concerned that if the Gypsy and Travellers pitches are sited at GT1, 2, 3 or 6 the sites may expand illegally into the surrounding countryside as has happened at Dale Farm and Crays Hill.



2.3 The document states that integrating the Gypsy and Traveller sites into residential settlements to promote community cohesion is an important aim. Large sites do not encourage such integration as has been found at Dale Farm and Crays Hill.



For these reasons we would advocate that the requirement be met by smaller sites spread across the district in areas that cannot easily be expanded. This would provide smaller Gypsy and Traveller communities that are more likely to integrate with existing residential settlements.







3. Economic Development - Options E13, 14, 15 ,16 and 18



3.1 We feel that the options E13 - 16 are unsuitable for economic development. They are in close proximity to existing residential sites and schools. These will be detrimentally affected by, among other things, noise and air pollution and would add considerably to the existing traffic congestion already experienced on the London Road, Rayleigh which is not suitable for heavy goods vehicles.



3.2 We do not understand why the majority of future employment will be directed to the West of the district. There are surely more suitable sites that would better meet the aim of being "in proximity to London Southend Airport".



3.3 Of the options proposed we would advocate that option E18, which is detached from residential settlements and has close proximity to main routes which are suitable for heavy goods vehicles, would be a better choice.