brentwood.gov.uk

I disagree with your suggestion that development on greenfield sites in the greenbelt would be needed, and am not convinced by your calculation that only 2500 homes can be built in urban brownfield sites, which appears to be based on evidence from your Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment Main Report & Appencies, which is dated October 2011. Specifically, §3.17 seems a bit out of date. Although it may have been reasonable to rule out flats as a viable development in 2011, the housing market has picked up since then, so it is no longer tenable to argue that "in the current climate such units [flats/apartments] are not proving to be popular". This assertion, which I consider out of date, is significant because it informs the criteria for what density of housing should be adopted. Specifically, Table 3/1 is incredibly biased against high-density housing: it effectively rules out terraced housing in "All other villages [that is, other than Brentwood/Shenfield/Ingatestone centre/W. Horndon centre/Doddinghurst centre], including sites adjoining the edge of villages". It also effectively rules out having flats outside of the "Brentwood centre, Shenfield centre plus sites on the main roads coming out of these centres".

All of these assumptions above are contrary to the evidence that flats and terraced houses ARE highly sought-after in Brentwood, even when located outside town centres. Consider the Clement's Park/former Warley Hospital site, which has many flats, yet is an incredibly popular neighbourhood, despite many of the housing units being completed during the recession (as observed by the report on Objectively Assessed Housing Needs, which points out that recent completions are bucking national trends, and thus may have given an overestimate for future need, see §5.28).

For these reasons, I think it would be far better to develop a limited number of brownfield sites, investing heavily in good public transport infrastructure for them, and leaving greenfield sites in the greenbelt wholly undeveloped.

In summary, it is possible that the "objectively assessed" need for housing may be an overestimate (as the report admits), and the bias in favour of low-density development must be revised, especially in light of the fact that flats are very much in demand (in any case, the greenbelt is too valuable to compromise just because developers and estate agents, some of whom seem to be rather cosy with Brentwood's elected councillors, notably Russell Quirk (insofar as he owns an estate agent), prefer houses to flats).