From The Echo, 27 July 2010:
TWO huge planning applications to build a total of 656 homes on green belt land have been turned down by the Government.
Following powerful campaigns by worried neighbours, the 330-home Christmas Tree Farm development for Hawkwell and plans for 326 homes at Coombes Farm near Rochford have been rejected by a planning inspector...
From The Southend Standard, 4 May 2011:
CAMPAIGNERS are preparing to battle a developer again after the firm submitted new plans for 175 homes on green belt.
People living near Christmas Tree Farm, Hawkwell, believed they had emerged triumphant when David Wilson Homes’s bid to concrete over the land off Rectory Road was rejected by a planning inspector last year.
However, they are now steeling themselves for another fight after learning the developer has come back with a new plan for almost half the number of homes it originally proposed...
Here's the Google map of the area with a black line in the bottom left hand corner showing how far 2,000 feet is. Those 175 houses would take up, at average density ten per acre, a square with side length 873 feet.*
View Larger Map
* 175 homes @ ten homes per acre = 17.5 acres
873 x 873 feet = 762,000 square feet
762,000 square feet ÷ 9 = 85,000 square yards
85,000 square yards ÷ 4,840 = 17.5 acres.
Completely predictable
30 minutes ago
6 comments:
I wonder what the vote would be if "local people" were given the option of knocking down 25 houses to build 200 flats or allowing a bit of green space to be "concreted"?
One problem under the current system is that antis can easily get things stopped, but "local people" have no mechanism to say yes let's allow some new build.
BE, the answer is "No", regardless of the question.
I don't get it.
Birth rates have been going down.
So why do we need so much new build ?
House prices aren't propped up by shortages. There are various financial and demographic mechanisms at work here.
And where (what) are the jobs ???
EK, indeed, I covered the population pyramid here.
Birth rates relatively stable over last fifty years, but life expectancy has increased, and the number of over 60s has increased disproportionately, and it is the over 60s who are most likely to:
a) have been able to afford a house for cheap back in the days of lots of new construction (when prices were kept low by Schedule A tax and Domestic Rates!)
b) live alone
c) be a NIMBY.
Add to that the Homey tax system, whereby jobs are taxed and houses are subsidised, and you have a recipe for disaster. And there are plenty of jobs, and it sure as heck ain't the pensioners doing them.
The locals no doubt do not want the developer tat that they serve up. The site should be larger.
The UK is desperately short of homes. They have to be built somewhere. It is what type and how they are built that is the problem. Estates divide communities. Organic development all around the edge of a village and town (sod the Green belt) is a great way.
Look at:
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/watercity/LandArticle.html
Cake and eat it. Better district, Less public services. Nope. Life dont work like that.
Here;s a good game. Try it soon:
The Robin Smith Institute: Housing development - Who benefits?
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