brentwood.gov.uk

I should like to raise the following issues regarding the LDP. GREEN BELT - While it concerns me that it has proved necessary to utilize Green Belt, I admire the council for sticking to its guns regarding defensible boundaries in order to prevent urban sprawl. I am aware that it is a government diktat that Green Belt should be used to
accommodate the unprecedented housing need but wonder why the enormous
brownfield Clapgate scrapyard site, off Chivers Road in Stondon Massey, is not part of the equation. TRAFFIC CONCERNS - I believe that problems besetting the Clapgate scrapyard site include difficulties involving access. Yet to invest in providing this could help to solve the problems below. 1. Traffic from the large amount of houses destined for Pilgrims Hatch, with access to the Doddinghurst Road, will make the road even more congested at peak times and will result in "rat runs" along minor roads. 2 Traffic from those houses on the William Hunter Way site will put an ENORMOUS amount of pressure on Brentwood's congested unofficial ring road, comprising Western Avenue and Western Road. The junction with the latter and Weald Road is totally inadequate with traffic lights so close to the mini roundabout there. Already, the back up of traffic caused by having to give way to vehicles from the right, and the proximity of the traffic lights, can cause tailbacks stretching down to Western Road, past North Road. I can only imagine the impact of more traffic on the Ongar Road. 3. To build these houses will deprive the town of valuable car parking space and dissaude outsiders from visiting Brentwood. As if the shops didn't have enough problems this could well and truly put a nail in the coffin.
4. As a resident of Pilgrims Hatch, I can testify that the area has a good bus service but, as a widowed pensioner, I would not be able to shop in Brentwood without a car - I would not be able to carry heavy shopping bags to and from bus stops and on and off buses. I rely heavily on collect-by-car services. Yes, I could resort to on-line ordering but this would further adversely affect the life blood of the High Street
ETHICAL CONCERNS - There is a development of 48 units on Western Road, close to its junction with Weald Road, listed as part of the LDP. This development was earlier presented to me, by the council, as a planning application and I was invited to submit any objections I might have. They were: More traffic debouching on to an already congested Western Road (part of Brentwood's unofficial ring road) close to its inadequate junction with Weald Road (as described in No.2 above). The design of the building did not blend with the appearance of the Edwardian /Victorian buildings in what was originally a quiet, residential road but is now a busy thoroughfare. The plans showed that this block of appartments more resembled the
high-rise ugly 1960 structures which Brentwood has been working hard to eliminate
from its townscape. I heard no more officially but understand that, owing to the huge amount of objections, the planners were trying to resolve some problems with the developers who refused to give the council the necessary time in which to do this. They appear to have got round the problem by resorting to the site's listing in the LOP (it had been listed for the development of 22 dwellings in the first draft).
Although this might be a legal loophole, it appears unethical to me because I understand it will be subject to a different policy to that which affects a normal planning application. It suggests that the developer wants to avoid the more stringent measures involved in the latter such as the design of the building and the fact that, in such a restricted area, the only alternative would be to build upwards which would totally conflict with the entire tenor of other homes in the road. CONCLUSION - All these problems appear to have arisen because the Government is demanding too much from such a small town. There is neither the capacity nor infra-structure for further building in the centre and to build outside its confines threatens the Green Belt Despite the need for housing, it is my suspicion that the Government's main aim is to test the water for future expansion of Greater London into Essex. The Campaign for the Protection of Rural England has informed me that the Government has ordered local councils to use Green Belt for building whether there are brownfield sites available or not I wonder whether this could this be the reason why the Stondon Massey scrapyard has not been considered for development.