brentwood.gov.uk

The C2C rail line only has two tracks and the trains are already well above capacity at peak times. The roads around the village (A127, A128) are characterised by standstills and queues in both the morning and evening peaks. An additional 500 cars would have a very material impact on already severely strained and congested roads. It is not feasible for these roads to cope with the proposed development at Dunton Hills Garden Village and the proposed development by other councils, even with investment. It is also impossible to see how the train capacity could be upgraded sufficiently.

The proposed development within the Plan is highly concentrated within the A127 Corridor. This scale and concentration proposed will irrevocably harm the landscape, environment and Green Belt within this area (at a disproportionate level than the wider Borough).
Brentwood borough is not the only local authority area along the A127 Corridor. Basildon, Thurrock, Castle Point, Rochford and Southend-on-Sea are also planning for growth and will also be relying on the A127 Corridor. Thurrock Council in particular is considering a site for 10,000 + homes on land adjacent to West Horndon village, which would in effect turn the village into a large town. The Plan does not take account of this. The Plan states that the area would remain surrounded by countryside but this would not be the case.
In my opinion a sustainable level of development within the A127 Corridor is limited to the development proposed at site RO2 (the West Horndon Industrial Estates). Even at this level however it would require a significant amount of infrastructure expenditure to ensure it is sustainable.

My family and I enjoy village life and want our village to remain a village however, appropriate development here (at the appropriate density and style to complement the existing village) to this maximum would improve the lives of West Horndon residents. It would still however double the size of our village, which in my opinion is the maximum that West Horndon could sustain and should be asked to contribute.

Throughout the development of the Plan, potentially viable alternative sites have been ignored. I believe the initial rejection of further growth in the A12 Corridor, or any material development in the North of the Borough, is not founded on sound analysis or hard evidence.

Given the scale of development proposed, the original "problems" identified including the need for new infrastructure are relevant wherever the development is sited. Greater diversification of the identified housing need will assist in improving deliverability, feasibility and the impact on local transport networks. In particular no account seems to have been taken of the A12 upgrade or Crossrail.

The C2C rail line only has two tracks, whereas Shenfield has four and the trains are already well above capacity at peak times. The roads around the village (A127, A128) are characterised by standstills and queues in both the morning and evening peaks.

An additional 500 cars (assuming just 1 per property) would have a very material impact on already severely strained and congested roads. It is therefore just not feasible for these roads to cope with the proposed development at Dunton Hills Garden Village and the proposed development by other councils, even with investment. It is also impossible to see how the train capacity could be upgraded sufficiently.

I also strongly challenge that the land around West Horndon village is suitable for development because of the flood risk, which is already a problem in the village and would create significant issues when considering larger scale development around the village.

For all of the above reasons I urge Brentwood Borough Council to rethink its current proposals and to come up with a revised plan that spreads the housing needs more fairly and equally across the Borough so that no one community is impacted so severely as in the current Plan.