PLANS to build 78 homes in a village should be independently reviewed because of a council’s “biased membership”, critics have claimed.

Cressing Parish Council has formally written to Braintree Council demanding the blueprints for the new estate in Polecat Road, Cressing, be reconsidered after they were given the go ahead by Braintree Council’s planning committee earlier this month.

In a strongly worded letter, the parish council has called for a review into the application because it says there is clear evidence the village’s infrastructure can not take any new homes.

More than 300 homes have already been approved for sites off Braintree Road and Mill Lane, and plans for up to 360 dwellings are expected to be submitted for Tye Green and Cressing in the near future.

Cressing Parish Council says the new houses being built in the village will see traffic increase “exponentially” and will therefore increase the risk of collisions occurring.

In its letter to Causeway House, the parish council says all evidence relating to highways matters for the Polecat Road application must be reviewed independently before a decision is made on whether to grant planning permission.

The letter states: “With no medical facilities in the parish, it will be necessary for residents to use public transport or drive to surgeries in Silver End or Braintree.

“Yet more vehicles on an already busy road is a ‘recipe for disaster’.

“The planning committee can hide behind the get-out statement that ‘it’s okay for Essex Highways’ and refuse to undertake a realistic traffic survey when they do not live in, know or represent the area.

“It was clear at the meeting the Conservative members of the committee intended to approve the application – clearly an indication that they do not care about the residents of the parish as they neither live in nor represent that area.”

The parish council has also asked Braintree Council why a proposed housing plan for Cressing, called a neighbourhood plan, was not considered when the Polecat Road application was decided.

The Cressing Neighbourhood Plan has completed examination and is now waiting for cabinet approval.

A spokesman for the parish council said it had not yet received a response to its letter.

A Braintree Council spokesman said: “We have received the letter from Cressing Parish Council and are currently considering its contents.”

Planning committee chairman Wendy Scattergood was contacted for comment.