brentwood.gov.uk

I am writing to you to oppose the major development of 1500 new homes within West Horndon CP4 and the proposed traveller sites DM28. This is for the following reasons:

Impact on our chosen life
We moved to the village in 2004, being our second home and one we planned to put work into to create a family home, which we completed in 2011. We see that a village is a safe, happy and close knit community within which to raise a family alongside trusting neighbours where everyone knows everyone. Building 1500 more homes is going to destroy the village life and loose the history of the village forever and the life we chose for our family. I don't see how the Borough council has the right to do this to our lives, the one we choose and strive to achieve as hard working citizens. We will no longer live in a close knit community where we know our children will be safe. We will no longer know everyone in the area. The number of cars on our local roads will treble making the area very unsafe for our children to play as they do now. How do you have the right to change our village to a town/city this is not why we moved here.

Building on Metropolitan Green Belt
I thought that "the government attaches great importance to Green Belts to prevent urban sprawl by keeping land permanently open"

The larger part of the allocation is within green belt! I thought this was inappropriate and harmful by definition of the National Planning Guidance.
The government recently clarified that housing demand is unlikely to constitute the exceptional circumstances to justify such loss.

Building on Green Belt is unacceptable and again destroying the reasons why we live here in the first place.

It is one rule for the government and a different rule for everyone else. If a member of the public just wants an extension or buy a piece of green belt to build a house it is a no go. However the government can simply put up 1500 homes where ever they like.

Impact on our property value
At the beginning of the year my neighbour said she wanted to move house, this was the ideal opportunity for us to move next door and complete another restoration project on a bigger property. We put our property on the market and we had steady viewings over the month but then my neighbour found a property to move to and had to move fast, there was cash buyer interested so she took their offer. We were always planning to stay within the village so we took our property off the market. We are now currently back on the market because of this development and gypsy site, at a lower price (£10K Less that the original valuation) as advised by the estate agent to tempt viewings under the current situation with this development notice going on. Since this planning development news and the possible traveller site news has come about we have had no interest at all in our property from perspective buyers! We have already dropped the price of our property £10k from the original valuation. What right does the government have to do something so detrimental to the value of our properties? We have put so much hard work, money, time and effort in to bettering ourselves and the future of our children's upbringing. All this will be taken away because of this housing and traveller allocation. Will we be compensated for the loss in the value of our properties?

The decision to destroy our village has obviously been made by someone who is not going to be directly affected by the decision they were making.

Impact of the Traveller sites
We don't have to look too far a field to see the impacts of the traveller sites. Buckles Lane in South Ockendon and Dale Farm Basildon are very close to home and are prime examples of what happens when the allocation of Traveller sites are located too close to open space/green belt. They soon spread into the open spaces around them with no regards to what they are doing to the land, fly tipping and general poor hygiene and disrespect for the countryside. West Horndon is not the place for traveller sites there is too much opportunity for them to take advantage of the open spaces and the way the borough are treating us residents at the moment i am sure they will have no objection to their expansion once there in! I really dont see how you expect to sell new properties along side a traveller site.

This too will have an impact on our family lives and the sociable aspect of the village as it stands today. It just will not exist anymore.

So too will it devalue our properties, are we going to be compensated for the change in value? Its already having a affect on us (as we cannot sell) and its not even here yet! We will possibly never be able to sell our properties and the whole area may become a much lower grade town with very poor community standards.

Impact on the Countryside and setting of the village.
West Horndon is a small low density settlement surrounded by countryside and the majority of which backing onto open countryside. We do not have to go far to encounter some of the extraordinary wildlife that surrounds us, Dunnock, Skylark, Kestrel, Tawny Owl, unusual butterflies and bats to name a few. All of the above are not found within towns as so will all vacate once development starts destroying their homes and the bio-diversity they bring. No consideration has been given to this!

Impact on roads and junctions
Pulling out of Thorndon Avenue onto station lane can be detrimental at the best of times without the increase in traffic from these 1500 new homes. There have been numerous occasions of near misses at this junction. On the Thorndon Avenue turning you cannot see properly around the corner because of the flats situated on the corner of the junction.

The condition of the roads are unsuitable for the planned increase in traffic. They are full of pot holes and far too narrow and of very poor upkeep to carry the increase in traffic.

At two locations along St Marys lane there are constant water seepages from underground which breaks through the road. I can only assume this is the water pipes underground. It creates huge puddles which the cars skate across causing collision issues. Several times a year these are attempted to be fixed without any success.

The junction or Station road and the A128 is always busy as it is. During rush hour times you can easily wait 10 minutes to be able to pull out onto the A128. The traffic starts to tail back along station road. This junction is already dangerous with the current flow of traffic both pull out and pulling into the village. At times I've felt like a sitting duck waiting to pull into station road which is very unnerving with children in the car. There has been many fatal accidents on this stretch of the A128 and this is going to increase the risk and completely goes against health and safety on this highway.

The proposed number of homes will also have a pollutant effect on the village's surroundings and ourselves as this will essentially mean at least another 3000 cars within the area.

Infrastructure
The infrastructure of West Horndon could not cope with an extra 1500 homes. The roads, station, bus service, schools, doctor surgery, play areas, shops, sewage, electricity supply are already not adequate enough. This comes at a time of massive cut backs from the government and I am sure the government will not throw money at this to get it right only giving the bare minimum. Or worse making the building contractor to supply the infrastructure when all they care about is profits and bottom line spending. This I am afraid to say is a recipe for a disaster for the local people, with the building contractors and MP's living in an unaffected area.

Flood Risk
Only on Christmas day 2012 the village was flooded and almost cut off. Many homes along Cardogan Avenue, St Marys Lane and Thorndon Ave were bailing out and the entrance to the church came very close. The industrial estate also flooded. So how on earth can you propose to put new homes within the village on our flood plains? The village also flooded in 1958 and 1981 and so Christmas day was by no means a first. Surely this is increasing the risk of flooding creating more concrete cities, this could create a massive safety risk by flooding the railway line. This too will have an impact on the property value and also our insurance premiums so we will be paying the price for this development. This to me does not sound like an ideal place to build a new development, I am sure the engineers and architects will say its ok to earn themselves lots of money but we will be left with the floods. I am also lead to believe we rely on a pumping station to keeping West Horndon from flooding. This would need a serious revamp.

Loss of local employment
Losing the industrial estate will mean a loss of local employment opportunities. It is not easy getting in and out of the village if you do not drive due to the current bus timetable and the train connection which although is C2C is still infrequent. So there will be possibly 4500 more people living in West Horndon and less jobs. This is just ridiculous this is going to contribute to more crime and again a lowering of the standard of living in the area with many people relying on benefits.

In conclusion I don't see how West Horndon has been pin pointed to take 43% of the boroughs allocation. Going on stats from 2011 Brentwood Borough population was 73,800 and West Horndon 1,482 of this. Having said all the above yes there is an argument that the country is growing but why not let each area grow as a percentage so not the change the village way of life. If you took an average of 3 people per home there is roughly 25,000 homes in Brentwood Borough and 500 in West Horndon. This equates to West Horndon making up 2% of the boroughs population, West Horndon should only take its fair percentage (2%) of the new housing. The new housing total for Brentwood borough is roughly 3500 so West Horndon should take its fair share (2%) 70 new houses?

No consideration has been given to the local residents who have chosen a village location. There are several detrimental effects to this proposed development for ourselves and the future generations destroying life as we know it and love it.
I hope these issues are considered seriously.