brentwood.gov.uk

My girlfriend and I are 29 and moved into Thorndon Avenue 18 months ago. It took us many years to save our deposit up, and we chose the village for its scenery, demography and village character.

If the planned proposals were to go ahead, the level of additional supply of housing every year for 15 years, the demography of many of the people moving into the new properties and the locality of the gypsie/traveller pitches would almost certainly negatively effect the value of our property. After working hard for all those years to buy our first home, we would then be unable to move house ever again given the losses doing so would incur. How could anybody justify this - destroying so much wealth.

Other concerns that I have are as follows:
- The level of housing proposed (>40% of the total housing requirement in Brentwood) is massively disproportionate to population of West Horndon. Irrespective of the available infrastructure, this would complete change the character of the village - indeed it would cease to be a village.
- This would build over Green Belt land unnecessarily when there are other areas with adequate transport networks that could absorb the level of housing build proposed in West Horndon
- Eric Pickles comments in the Independent 2rd June 2010 "It will no longer be possible to concrete over large swathes of the country without any regard to what local people want" and ""The previous government gave a green light for the destruction of the green belt across the country and we are determined to stop it." This is literally concreting over green belt land - it cannot be described any other way.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/oct/03/eric-pickles-concrete-green-belt [ link to article in the Guardian 'Eric Pickles: government will not concrete over green belt' Monday 3 Oct 2011]
- Your proposals will be trapping myself and my partner for many years in our current house, and we may never be able to leave as a result of the house price declines this will cause.- There is no guidance on the % of affordable housing in the West Horndon area
- What is the definition of affordable housing and what would the character of these properties be
- Where, specifically, would the gypsie / traveller pitches be placed. Does the council have a legal obligation to provide these.
- I understand there is a current motion in Parliament that removes the obligation to house gypsie / traveller populations - what is the progress of this and will the planned pitches in West Horndon be cancelled if this motion suceeds.
- The wealth destruction to the value of the existing houses would be enormous. In a society that aims to increase wealth, how can this proposal even be considered and what kind of incentive does it provide to even continue working and providing to the state.