Rayleigh and Wickford MP, Mark Francois, has formally lodged an objection with Rochford District Council to an outline planning application by Southern and Regional Developments Limited to develop up to 500 houses in the area of Malyons Farm in west Hullbridge.
The application was released for comment in the run up to Christmas and, having carefully read through the application in detail, Mark lodged an objection as the local MP, on the grounds that the developer is not proposing to provide sufficient infrastructure to alleviate the effect of the new houses on the local community. Specifically, Mark objected to the fact that the traffic survey accompanying the application is almost five years old – which is in contravention of guidelines surrounding such surveys. In addition, the developer had not made sufficient provision to deal with the potential flood risk caused by the extra properties, in the event of exceptionally heavy rainfall.
Commenting on his objection, Mark Francois said:
"This application was only circulated for comment in the run up to Christmas but I took some time between Christmas and New Year to go through it very carefully and, having done so, it seems to me that the developer is not offering any real guarantees about future infrastructure. In addition, is it not clear that the developer in question would be the ultimate developer of the site itself and so there is some confusion as to who would actually end up building on it. Having served in local Government myself some years ago, I still know a bit about planning applications and, in my opinion, this one is simply not up to scratch and so I hope Rochford District Council will not be minded to approve it."
At present, the application is likely to be determined by Rochford District Council’s Development Control Committee sometime in February 2015.