How are you engaging with residents and businesses?

Rochford District Council have REFUSED to meet with the TAX PAYERS of Hullbridge where a vast majority of the building works are suggested for planning.

RDC have prevented appropriate community involvement by blocking residents from adding meaningful statistical information to the Evidence Base.

Having read a vast amount of the huge documents that have been produced with reference to the Issues and Options and the New Area Plan, I write to comment as follows.

Infrastructure first? One of the main issues identified in the Issues and Options document, was with reference to the infrastructure, in particular, the fact that the B1013 will need improvement to cope with the proposed developments. It does not take an expert to know that there are points along this road that currently are close to capacity at certain times of the day. The main issue here is that the possibilities for improvement of traffic flow on this road, are limited and in any case, will not be able to be improved to the extent that would be required to cope with the inevitably large increase in traffic that would be needed to access the route. One doesn't need to be a Traffic Engineer to come to that conclusion. The impact on social wellbeing, air quality and general safety of residents living along the route, is only likely to worsen with the current proposals. Despite so called experts extrapolation that these facts can be mitigated, there is general disbelief of their conclusions within the residents of the area.*

The Hockley Area Action Plan, was flawed when it was first produced and is still flawed, despite making minor alterations to it. I am very familiar with the Eldon Way Industrial site as I occupied and traded from a factory on that estate for 14 years. This is a successful industrial and leisure area that would not benefit it or the residents with the proposals currently included in the HAAP.

The Sustainability Appraisal produced by AECOM is fatally flawed in that from what I have read, no account has been taken of local knowledge. Local knowledge would indicate a completely different conclusion on many issues* to that produced in the report by AECOM.

To include the suggestion of the Hockley railway station car park (showing on map G) as a possible site for housing development, is quite frankly, shocking. It is well documented that Hockley has an existing problem with commuter parking and the station car park during the week, is always close to capacity. To suggest that the inclusion of this site in the New Area Plan would benefit and enhance the area, beggars belief.

There are many more specific items within the documentation that have been provided to the general public, that lead to the conclusion that the proposals put forward in the New Area Plan are not sustainable for the Rochford District area. In its current form, I believe the proposals are not fit for purpose and should be completely revised.

Finally, I would comment that the engagement of the public that the Council regularly voice that they would like, has been hampered by the way it has been presented on the Council website. It has been difficult to pinpoint where to access the relevant documents are and many residents have expressed to me that they 'gave up in the end'. This needs to be a much simpler operation in engaging with the public on any future consultations.

1. Firstly details of the Issues & Options Document were not made widely available. I am not on the internet and only found out about the proposals by chance. I then went to Hullbridge Library who had some documentation but did not have any plans to identify the proposed areas for development. This absence of plans must have been in breach of the Council's statutory obligations and therefore your procedures could well be null and void as I have not therefore had a fair and proper chance to consider the proposals.

2. Although I was not able to access the plans. I have since spoken to a number of people and understand from them that a substantial part of the land under consideration for development which lies to the west of Hullbridge is subject to flooding. This being the case I would like to know who would be responsible for lesser damage to property or even loss of life on a result of bad planning?

3. In the previous proposed development plan, the Council wanted to protect and to the west of Hullbridge on Green Belt or for agricultural use so why is this land now being considered for development?

4. Hullbridge is generally already locking in proper infrastructure such an roads and other services including the absence of a secondary school so the impact on Hullbridge of any substantial new development would be catastrophic to the village of Hullbridge.

5. Why have the Rochford Council apparent not considered a joint project with Chelmsford for the redevelopment of Battlesbridge which already has good infrastructure such as very easy to access to several mainr oads and in particular a railway station?