After more years of delay and error by the North Essex Authorities over their “Garden Communities” Plan, the Government Inspector has thrown it out for a second time. He said that 2 of the 3 proposed “Garden Communities” (New Towns) were financially unviable. West Tey fell well short of being viable. He also said that the proposed high rate of house building was not supported by evidence from elsewhere.

The Inspector came to the same conclusion as many local residents and groups had done over the so-called “Rapid Transit System (RTS)”. The Green & Independent Group at BDC tried several times to persuade the Conservative administration to realise the RTS would not work, but they would not listen. The Inspector concluded that “the fact that Rapid Transit Routes 3 and 4 have not been shown to be deliverable is entirely at odds with the Plan’s aspirations for integrated and sustainable transport networks”.

The 3 New Towns would have resulted in the development of 2,000 hectares of land, mostly countryside, with up to 43,000 houses built. They were being heavily promoted as a high growth concept to develop the A120 corridor linking Stansted Airport to the east coast ports. Not only have the New Towns at West Tey and West of Braintree been found Unsound, plans for New Towns in Uttlesford District were also thrown out by a different set of Inspectors.

Following the first rejection of the New Towns Plan in 2018, and the local elections that followed in May 2019, The Green & Independent Group on Braintree District Council has consistently tried to get the Conservative administration at BDC to change tack, pointing to the high risks of further failure and the fact that speculative developers were in the meantime picking off greenfield sites around local towns and villages due to uncertainty and years of delay on the Local Plan.

- The G&I Group proposed shelving the New Towns Plan (Section1 ) and instead proceeding quickly with Section 2 of the Plan – which would have made sure that Braintree District had the legally required number of houses allocated to the year 2033. The Conservatives rejected that proposal.

- The G&I Group urged that no more public money should be given to NEGC, the company promoting the New Towns, unless and until the Inspector gave the go-ahead for them. The Conservatives rejected that proposal and gave NEGC more public money.

- And the G&I Group requested that the way in which the Local Plan was being drawn up should be more inclusive, and not rely on a handful of top councillors making all the main decisions. The Conservatives also rejected that proposal.

In the run-up to the Examination of the New Towns Plan in January, the Green & Independent Group held a series of well-attended public meetings to facilitate discussion about the Local Plan and several parish councils and campaign groups also held events.

A key issue that was discussed, and one which the Conservative leadership at BDC has tried to bypass, is that the 3 New Town developments were never even needed in order to secure a legally “Sound” Local Plan. Only a small proportion of the development in the 3 New Towns would have been completed by the end of the plan period in 2033, with the rest coming forward over several decades. West Tey would not have been finished until the start of the next century. That would be like local government back in the 1930s trying to plan for us now without knowing what the housing, transport, energy, water etc requirements would be that far in the future.

We do not rule out the possibility of village-scale Garden Communities at some point in time, but if they are ever built they must be planned with full engagement with our existing communities. For now the priority must be to secure a Local Plan quickly and that means getting Section 2 through the system.

In his Open Letter, the Leader of BDC says

“We felt that ‘garden communities’ – new planned settlements rather than add-ons to current towns and villages – were the best option to protect our existing towns and villages from urban sprawl.”

In doing so he once again fails to address the fact that Section 2 of the Local Plan already includes about 14,000 houses, most of which are add-on developments to current towns and villages and now include many unsustainable village greenfield sites given planning permission whilst the errors and delays on his Local Plan have built up.

The Section 1 New Towns Plan was additional development on top of the high level of already committed development in Section 2. In future decades, the New Towns would not have prevented still further add-on developments to towns and villages. The claims by the BDC Conservative administration have been simply misleading.

But it is now time to draw a line and to move on. We call on the administration of BDC to work across party lines in a cooperative way to secure a Local Plan as quickly as possible. We again request reform of the way Local Plan decisions are made at BDC, so that a wider range of councillors are involved in key points of the decision making process. And crucially, we ask that there is genuine outreach to local communities so that their views are taken on-board in a meaningful way.

The G&I Group of Braintree District councillors

James Abbott Group Leader

Jo Beavis

Stevie Hicks

Jenny Sandum

Paul Thorogood

Nick Unsworth Deputy Group Leader

Tom Walsh

Michelle Weeks

Bob Wright