Residents launch campaign against stadium

3:16pm Friday 15th February 2008

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RESIDENTS fighting plans for a football stadium and 500-home development have launched a campaign petition.

They have set up campaign group Save Our Fields Today (Soft) to co-ordinate their battle against the development planned for land off Pod's Brook Road, Braintree.

Rayne Parish Council has agreed to oppose the blueprint drawn up by Braintree Town Football Club and developer WG Developments for a 6,000-capacity stadium and hundreds of homes.

Residents said they were concerned they would lose countryside, have increased traffic and noise and see Braintree joined with the village of Rayne if the development went ahead.

Kevin Fenn, 26, a technical consultant, of Springfields, who is behind Soft, said he did not think the stadium complex and housing was a "done deal" and warned not just residents living nearby, but the whole of east Braintree would be affected.

Martyn Phillips, chairman of Rayne Parish Council, said a new Braintree Town stadium was "not an issue", but the parish was opposed to it at the cost of 500 houses and the "spreading of one of Braintree's tentacles towards Rayne".

Braintree MP Brooks Newmark said he shared residents' concerns and hoped Braintree Council planners would think carefully about these worries.

Wayne Gold, WG Developments managing director, said a planning application should be submitted to the council by the summer after assessment work on the highways and the impact the proposed development would have on the local environment.

He said: "There's work to be done and nothing I'm afraid of or that worries me.

"It's so you can cross all the Ts and dot all the Is and it will give the local authority more comfort and local people concerned about issues."

A statement from Braintree Town said their directors had met senior planners at Braintree Council, who "emphasised their desire to assist the football club with its relocation".

Some residents were concerned if the development was given the go-ahead, it could lead to plans to extend it to land south of the Flitch Way.

Geoffrey Stone, a family historian, who has lived in a farmhouse off Queenborough Lane - below the proposed housing site - for 20 years, said he "was sure" development would eventually spread right along to where he lives.

Veronica Balls, a Braintree Council spokesman, said there were no talks going on over it and no specific representations had been made as part of the local development framework.