Planning Policy Team
Council Offices
London Road
Saffron Walden
CB11 4ER / My Address

Dear Sirs,

Fairfield Planning Application

I would like to make the following points of objection to the application.

UTT/13/0808/OP

Fairfield Site, Station Road, Elsenham, Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire CM22 6LB

Outline application with all matters reserved, except access, for up to 800 dwellings; up to 0.5ha of class B1a and B1c employment uses; up to 1,400sqm of retail uses; a primary school; up to 640sqm of Health Centre use; up to 600sqm of community buildings; up to 150sqm of changing rooms; access roads including access points to B1051 Henham Road and Old Mead Road, a construction access and haul route from B1051 Henham Road, a Waste Water Treatment Works access from Bedwell Road, and provision of a link road at Elsenham Cross between the B1051 Henham Road and Hall Road; a Waste Water Treatment Works and other associated infrastructure, landscaping and boundary treatment works. Demolition of all existing buildings.

Objections

  • This proposal should not be seen as ‘just’ for 800 dwellings on 51ha, but clearly as phase 1 of a 3,000 dwelling development on the 265ha under the control of the applicant. This is not made explicit in the submitted material, but not denied by the developer. Even the 800 dwellings would almost double the size of Elsenham (around 1000 existing dwellings) and be far too much development added onto a small settlement. It is much more sustainable to add urban extensions of this scale to the main towns in the District (Saffron Walden, Gt Dunmow) with proper access to schools, employment, retailing and community services. This is the strategy of the emerging Local Plan.
  • The site has been twice rejected for major development - by Government for the ‘ecotown’ in 2009 and in the UDC in the Draft Local Plan 2012.
  • Government identified the following weaknesses in 2009 with this location, and these remain:
  • within a water stressed area
  • capacity of the local road network
  • improved train services at Elsenham would be at the expense ofservices at other nearby stops
  • impact on the character of nearby villages
  • loss of agricultural land
  • presence of protected species in the vicinity
  • generally moderate archaeological potential
  • Development on this scale should be pursued through the local plan process when all potential sites can be evaluated together through the ‘plan led system’ advocated by Government policy. The Planning Statement states that the larger scheme is to be promoted through the Local Plan system, the 800 dwelling scheme should not be pursued differently. If permitted it could compromise proper consideration of the development proposal as a whole.
  • This is an opportunistic application being made in an attempt to bypass the proper process and deny the legitimate involvement of the local community in the planning of its surroundings.
  • No evidence is presented to show that the site would make more than marginal contribution to housing land supply. Other sites which already been identified in the emerging Local Plan (after responding to extensive public consultation) are already the subject of planning applications which will make a more meaningful and sustainable contribution to housing supply.
  • Large numbers of affordable houses would be better located adjoining the main towns where new occupants have family links, not in a remote and cut off location as proposed.
  • The access roads which serve Elsenham and Henham are winding country lanes with inadequate widths and junctions. The road system is wholly unsuitable for even 800 new houses, let alone 3,000.
  • 800 or even 3000 dwellings are too small to support essential services such as a secondary school.
  • Even the size of Elsenham as proposed would be too small to support a supermarket leading to shoppers using cars to access existing stores. It would also be too small to attract significant employers and the station would encourage a commuter settlement.
  • The eventual development would create the coalescence of Elsenham and Henham causing loss if identity and character.
  • The countryside setting around Elsenham and Henham would be destroyed by this development; pleasant landscape would be lost forever.

(Additional Comments)

Yours faithfully,

Name