An Inspector Calls – and Mark Francois Sets Out His Position

September

9

17 comments

The planning inspector has some important hearings this week in the Civic Suite in Rayleigh? The public can come along and watch? if they wish….

Tomorrow:

At 10 AM – Housing and employment land West Of Rayleigh.

At 2PM – the Traveller Site

Wednesday 10 AM – Stambridge Mills and West Rochford – and the alternative site of Eastwood Nurseries.

You can find more information on the Council Website here. In fact there’s some other new stuff here, including a “SYNOPSIS OF EVIDENCE FOR THE INSPECTOR FROM MARK FRANCOIS MP”.l You can download Mark Francois’? document here.

Here’s his comments on the proposed Traveller Site:

The Travellers Site at Dale Farm, which achieved national prominence when it was cleared by Basildon Borough Council last year, is only a few miles from
Rayleigh, in the neighbouring constituency of Basildon and Billericay.
Travellers issues therefore resonate strongly in South Essex and most of the 100 or so representations which I have received directly from constituents
in the past few weeks have referred to theTravellers site as a particular source of concern.
My understanding is that Rochford District Council (RDC) intends to create one municipally run Travellers site at Michelin?s Farm , which would have pitches for some 15 families and which would likely not commence operation much before 2018.
I still have concerns about this but, if it is to go ahead, then it is important that the site is very tightly regulated, ideally with some form of warden control, to reassure local residents and to ensure that those people occupying the site do not cause disruption to the settled community.
With regards to location, if we are to have such a site in the District, then Michelin?s Farm, out by the Fairglen Interchange and adjacent to the junction of the A127 and A1245 is close to major transport routes and is near enough to health, educational and shopping facilities, in accordance with planning directives, but is also strategically located to avoid conflict between the settled and Travelling communities.
I understand that one alternative site which has previously been put forward is on the land close to Swallow Aquatics, on the London Road. I would be strongly opposed to this
counter-proposal. The site in question is much closer to the settled community in Rayleigh. In addition, this site is overhung by high voltage power lines, which I understand would normally debar it from consideration from any kind of new residential use.

Re the housing, Mr Francois discusses the various infrastructure issues and concludes:

I can appreciate that some new housing has to be built somewhere, in order to allow the next generation somewhere to live locally but I would like to
highlight to you the important points about local infrastructure, particularly regarding highways and
flood protection/drainage but also relating to educational and medical provision as well, which I believe
must be successfully addressed if these proposed sites are to be released for housing in the future.

 

 

 

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  • I strongly welcome these comments, although it would have been even better if he had come out in favour of developing brownfield first. However, he has at least taken on board the concerns of everyone who has written to him, and has come out against Swallows as an alternative for travellers. I am prepared to eat some of my words about his lack of response.

  • I agree with everything he says in the document that you have linked to. The point he makes about the mini roundabout is interesting to me as it adds to my concern that if the proposed Hullbridge development were to go ahead then there would need to a similar roundabout at the junction of Hullbridge Road, Lower Road and Watery Lane. Of course the traffic from the Hullbridge development would inpact further on the Hullbridge Road/Rawreth Lane junction that Mark Francois MP is concerned about.

  • I think he noticed which way the Train was heading and jumped on board before getting left behind, but the first skirmish well and truly won – no travellers site in the London Rd . The RAG battle continues………..

  • Warden control. Does anyone actually think that will work? I can picture a poor individual sat in a kiosk at the entrance to the site being completely and utterly ignored. The suggestion that a warden could control the site displays a shocking lack of understanding of the situation. I’m rapidly losing all faith in some of our elected representatives.

  • Michael, I’m sure that some municipal traveller sites work – to a greater or less extent – elsewhere.
    However if I lived near the proposed site I would be extremely concerned that the council wasn’t already giving me some detailed information to reassure me about the whole thing.
    I’m still waitimg for some answers to some questions myself.

  • Michael,

    Having watched numerous programmes about our traveller friends you are making a great leap of faith to assume that the kiosk would still exist after a few weeks……

  • Following on from my post @ 5 above, I scanned back through the archives and found the article I posted on 24th July 2012 under the heading ‘A Really Interesting Meeting’ [Post number 9]
    As the archives take some finding I am repeating it again here.

    Greenbelt:
    July 29th, 2012

    The time has come for real solutions to the transport infrastructure, and for something which at least bypasses some of Rawreth Lane. To achieve this, I make the following suggestion.
    Rawreth Lane and Watery Lane will undoubtedly fall victim to major traffic increases when the two new sites are developed on the green belt adjacent to the Rawreth Industrial Estate road and the proposed site adjacent to the east end of Watery Lane.
    It has also been suggested that Watery Lane would be difficult to redevelop westward as the link to Beeches Road and Battlesbridge, makes connection to the A1245/A130 difficult.
    Firstly, I strongly propose that the stretch of Rawreth Lane between, the junction now being discussed at Hambro Parade and the Rawreth Industrial Estate road, be left out of any new development altogether as there is no scope at all for extra capacity.
    Instead I suggest that a new north bound road is provided from a point in Rawreth Lane, somewhere near Madrid Avenue, which would then link with a section of the eastern end of Watery Lane at a point where it could be easily widened to meet the future needs of the Hullbridge development and, further to the east of the district if necessary.
    Some sort of relief road like this will be essential by 2020 and beyond, so please let’s start thinking about the wider aspects of these new developments that are being forced upon us and NOT even try to ‘make do and adapt’ the inadequate transport infrastructure we already have to endure.
    I guess this will not be looked on too favourably by the occupants of properties at the western end of Rawreth Lane, for which I am sorry, but those of us living at the more developed end are having to put up with greater congestion and pollution week by week and it’s now time for some positive action and discussion.

  • Chris,

    I’m afraid I just don’t agree. Seeing as large sites such as the proposed often create police no go areas I just don’t see how a ‘warden’ will make any impact whatsoever. Travellers don’t like being governed by the settled community by their own admittance. These groups tend to be self regulating with a hierarchy and respect culture within their own communities. This is the reason why RDC have got this completely wrong. Small, single family self governed sites work. Larger mixed traveller group sites don’t. Different traveller groups (English and Irish gypsies) rarely mix. RDC has plainly failed to conduct adequate due diligence in its planning in this instance and if this goes ahead this end up costing significant sums to rectify.

  • Thanks Chris. It would be useful if you receive a response from RDC to your questions regarding this to share them on this forum. I appreciate you voted against this so please note my comments aren’t directed at you.

  • I totally agree with Michael too – unlike RDC I’ve actually spoken to the local Gypsies and they explained to me that the ‘tribal’ nature of Travellers/Showmen/Gypsies which
    makes living together unworkable – all on one site will create problems as their customs/ways are different and there is only so much itinerent work available in any one area.
    Now I don’t believe in any one group getting special treatment but the fact is the RDC district already has 6 small (extended family) sites accross it and we have no issues to speak of to prove it works. So now we spend £2.5million solving a problem we don’t have only to get a set of problems we don’t need (and an endless ongoing cost of mis-managing it) ie:-
    Tonights Echo Gypsy Horses escape and cause havoc on the A127 at Basildon for example.

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