Our Characteristics

I am writing to express my concern at the plan to build more new homes and increased development in Hockley. I have recently moved to the area, from Romford, which used to be a traditional market town; however, that was before the council decided to build thousands of new homes. It is now a built up town, with an extremely high crime rate and is far from the nice market town it once was. I have seen first hand how it has gone from a desirable area to a no go town, which is something I and the residents of Hockley would be devastated if this were to happened here. Please see below some key points/questions that concern myself and the people of Hockley:

- Already, the village experiences high congestion at peak times - how exactly is it supposed to cope with an extra 28, 000 cars on the road?

- The extra pollution? How will this affect our health and also the beautiful countryside and wildlife?

- Hockley is desirable due to its village appeal. With increased development this will disappear and it will be like other overdeveloped towns, with no character and the issues that come with the increased activity

- Will there be sufficient infrastructure to cope with the increased pressure on doctors' surgeries and the nearest hospitals? The wait for appointments is already far too long meaning health is out at risk. How will it cope with 7,500 more people needing treatment?

- How will the schools cope? With increased class size, children's education will suffer. This will have a detrimental effect.

- It is well documented that the crime rate in built up areas is higher than that in less populated villages and towns.

Please consider these points. This is an extremely important issue for Hockley residents and something that needs much consideration - it would mean changing the village for ever and not for the better. It is a strong opinion that the focus should be on preserving the local area and village feel.

Many thanks for taking the time to read this email and consider the points above.

I am writing to object to the following site reference number developments in Great Wakering:
CFS057, CFS097, CFS070, CFS065, CFS011, GF03, CFS056 and CFS034
I was born in Great Wakering 40 years ago and the greatest qualities in the village is the Community, peace, safety and being surrounded by people who you know. If, the above planning goes ahead this will be lost for the following reasons.
School
The Great Wakering Academy is full and would not be able to take the planned volume of children. If the plans went ahead siblings of the current families may miss out on spaces and have to commute to other schools. As most schools start at similar times how would parents get their children to different schools. We are not within walking distance of other schools and do not have frequent public transport. With the school being the size it is there is an excellent family feel to it, this would be lost if the village was to expand. Currently there is a lollypop lady at the beginning and end of the day but she does not cover after school activities or breakfast club times. With no permanent crossing and an increase in traffic the children's safety would be a major concern.
Roads
We do not have the roads to cope with the increase in traffic volume and they would not be fit for purpose. When they built the Star Lane development there was often delays caused by traffic lights, access vehicles, clearing of mud on the road etc. The High Street in Great Wakering is the main road and already has cars parked on both sides, which leads to single lane use. This increase in traffic will lead to a loss of on-road parking which is a loss of valuable residential amenity. The reason for such parking on the roads is because we are a village with old cottages that do not have off road parking.
The only other access is Poynters Lane. Locals tend not to use this road as it has poor visibility, dangerous speeds are used and pedestrians sometimes walk along it. With increased traffic and building vehicles this would increase the dangers. We are not close to major roads such as the A127 or the main part of the A13. There are plenty of other towns with the potential for development which have good access to the A127 and A13, transport and amenities.
There is one crossing in Great Wakering at the doctors surgery. Increase in cars travelling and parked will become a danger to pedestrians.
Public Transport
The number 4 bus serviced this village for years, twice an hour and took around 20/25 minutes into Southend. About a year and a half ago this was replaced with the number 7/8 bus. This bus can now take 45 minutes to get to Southend as it goes around Shoebury, Thorpe Bay and Woodgrange before finally reaching Southend. It was supposed to be 3 times an hour but now it's twice an hour. So since the Star Lane development our public Transport has actually got worse. Some of the behavior I have seen on the bus has not been nice due to the areas it goes through and my working day has increased as I have a longer journey. The bus is also full and sometimes you cannot get a seat from Southend. When the changes happen it was sold as a better service as it would go past Thorpe Bay train station, well the number 4 went past Southend East so that wasn't improving the service. If these plans were to go ahead this bus service would not cope. I thought we were trying to move away from car based communities not build them!
Surroundings
Great Wakering has beautiful surroundings and many residents look out onto fields with uninterrupted views and great privacy. Children play in the surrounding fields, we exercise in the open space. According to our Human Rights Protocol 1 Article 1 we are entitled to peaceful enjoyment of possessions. The developments would destroy our enjoyment of peace by bringing busy roads, all the current walks across the fields would have developments either side, increased noise, smell from work, people, vehicles and over-crowded amenities. By losing the fields this would increase the risk of flooding which Wakering has a history of. We should be protecting Green Belt as a valuable flood prevention not building on it. I believe the Government model for this district is 7,500 homes but with the rate of growth it should be 3,500. Green Belt land should not be used just to ease housing targets it has greater uses such as food production and stopping our village from joining up to the next town and losing the village forever. In the Rochford District Historic Environment Characterisation Project document on the Rochford.gov.uk website,it was said that the historic environment has a powerful influence on peoples' sense of identity and civic pride. Pages 69-70 have some points about Great wakerings history and how a few of the original boundaries survive and every effort should be made to preserve them.
Wildlife
In my garden alone I have squirrels, foxes, birds, hedgehogs and I have heard bats in the village. Day and night the wildlife can be seen. Green buffers between developments would not be enough to keep this wildlife and yet another use for Green belt. Villagers enjoy the walks and seeing the wildlife. With over development to a village, this wildlife would be destroyed.
Amenities
We have one coop which is busy and only has a small car park with tight access. When there are deliveries cars and pedestrians have to stop whilst the lorry reverses into the car park. With an increase for the coop how would it cope with the deliveries and customers. Our local tip is over 30 minutes drive away and then there is often a queue.
Security and Crime
Great Wakering is a very low crime and secure village. The children are happy and parents have confidence in them being allowed out in the village. I have never felt unsafe day or night. But if the village grew to the size of the proposals then this would change. We would not know the people around us and there is hardly any police presence in this village.
Employment
Developments should bring employment but already Star Lane housing has taken some away, with the selling of Star Lane industrial estate. Also Southend is declining in employment opportunities so what are all these new residents going to do for work. My work in Southend will be going in the next few years.
Great Wakering
It is a village and that is why we live here these plans are inappropriate for a village and it will be destroyed. Our previous Prime Minister said that" protecting Green Belt is paramount".

Please be advised that as the owner of 16 Barling Road I have some serious concerns regarding any possibility of building taking place on the fields to the North of my property.

Firstly any new buildings on this plot would be out of sync with the density of housing along Barling Road. There are parts of the road that have a property on only one side and in some stretches there are none on either side of the road. It therefore feels ridiculous to consider building behind properties along Barling road when the road itself has space for further properties.

Secondly I feel access to the plot would be extremely dangerous. Both possible entry points from the map would create blind spots on to country roads where significant traffic flow from a new development would likely cause a significant level of traffic incidents. This extra traffic would also make it a lot more dangerous for us as residents trying to leave our driveways.

Thirdly all views of the countryside would be decimated for all residents with properties to the North of Barling Road, changing the area significantly This is an area of Rochford that it not in a town and is simply a rural country road, with no local amenities except for the Rose Inn pub. Surely the logical place to build would be on the edge of a town where all local amenities are already situated and could take the stain of an extra development as well as have less of an impact on residents views.

Fourthly, Barling road would not be able to cope with all this extra traffic. Traffic is getting considerable worse in Rochford and Southend with recent properties being built and there being no extra infrastructure provided to cope with all the extra housing. It is now normal for it to take 30 minutes or more by car to get to Progress Road during the day and from there being able to access a significant and flowing main road.

In Summary this is simply a rural road, and not a plot on the edge of a town where if you wanted to build new homes it would make more sense. There are no amenities here, the roads are busy at the best of times. Building on this plot would be a disaster anyway, yet to do so when considering how many better local alternative plots there are would be ludicrous.

Here is the reason I don't want the buildings to take place.

The fields in Great Wakering are the main part of the village as this village has been around more then 100 years and farming has been at the heart of it. Also the fields are still in use today. Another reason is that the wildlife is very important because every morning when i go to school I can here the birds singing and i like looking, at the fields as me and my friends walk down to the bus stop. Finally, everybody bascilly know each other which is very good.

Please find this email as an objection to the development of land at the rear of Malvern Road and Harrogate Drive.

We purchased a property in Malvern Road last September and after some decorating and refurbishment only started living here from last month, we are very excited to start enjoying our new home and intergrating into Hockley life and see a long term future here. A big selling point to the house and area was the wonderful natural woodland outlook that you are now proposing to take away, if built upon we would lose our amazing view, beautiful wildlife, increased traffic/noise and a security risk to our very open back houses.

We are a young family and after only a few weeks living in the area, have found congestion in and out of hockley a major problem which poses a concern if the number of people living here was to increase, also we have been faced with waiting lists for placements at nurseries and play centres/toddler groups which already seem to be struggling with the number of applicants.

Plus as an observation the current average age of residents in Hockley, seems quite high, therefore once new generations move into the already existing houses we think the area will struggle with an increase in volume anyway, so to add to this would be highly upsetting to the current residents that wish to keep hockley as a friendly/appealing place to live.

I understand that all areas have needed extra houses to be built to help with the housing crisis. However I believe enough has been built in the Hullbridge area or permission is already in place. Therefore I object to any further building. Our village would not be able to take any more developments for a number of reasons.

1. The road structure would not be able to cope with anymore cars. Rush hour is awful on Rawreth Lane, Watery Lane, through the whole of Hullbridge. Unfortunately traffic from Hockley, Rochford areas use Hullbridge as a route through to Chelmsford- watery lane cannot cope with the traffic and certainly wouldn't cope with anymore. Will that be made into a duel carriage way? After a day at work queuing to enter our home village just isn't on!

2. Schools- our local Senior schools are full so another one would need to be built. I'm not sure where the extra children from the 500 approved houses will go?! Our local primary school wouldn't cope with a huge influx of children either.

3. Agricultural land is disappearing quickly by being built on. We need to become more self sufficient rather than relying on imports from abroad if we want a successful brexit. Farmland needs to be looked after and successfully used.

4. I have grown up in Hullbridge and decided to buy my own house for my family in the village. Village being the important word, I wanted my children to experience the village lifestyle with fields and the river not boxed in like a town. Community spirit is important to me and that will be lost if Hullbridge expands anymore. If I wanted to live in a town that is where I would have bought. We used to have several parks throughout Hullbridge which have gradually sadly been built on.

5. Utilities how would they cope with more houses.

6. Many roads in Hullbridge are single track or unmade roads, which is fine with the current flow of traffic but certainly wouldn't cope with anymore cars.

7. I assume that now we are having 500 more houses built the buses will run more regularly and reliably. When I used to catch a bus to Sweyne school it would take me hours to get home as the buses couldn't fit enough people. What will happen now?

8. The correct infrastructure isn't in place now for the new houses costing the village money, therefore we do not need anymore.

9. Another doctors would need to be built as the current doctors has enough pressures and patients already.