If There’s More Overdevelopment, Who You Gonna Call?

Well, if it’s in Rayleigh don’t bother calling the Rayleigh Conservatives.

Residents will be alarmed to read (but probably not surprised) that the Conservatives once again covered themselves with glory at tonight’s development committee by voting for another 222 dwellings on the Land north of london rd. That will take the total to 722 and that doesn’t include those approved for ‘Land adjacent to Grange Villas’ or Timber Grove.

As a visiting member I took the opportunity to speak and reiterated the near on 50% increase on the housing numbers for the site if approved. I spoke about the road network, doctors, schools all being unable to cope with the demand, all which appeared to fall on deaf ears.

It was the usual story of more housing and the lack of infrastructure to go with it. I asked the committee to refuse the application on unsustainable overdevelopment grounds. The chance of this were slim I know… but what really bugged me about tonight’s development committee apart from the application being approved? Two visiting members, both Rayleigh Councillors, didn’t speak against the development and the majority of the committee which is made up with mainly Rochford Councillors, happily voted the application through.

This should be a very clear warning to Rayleigh residents, the Rayleigh Conservatives aren’t going to speak up for you on local issues, that have and will continue to get worse and for those in the East (and I’m thinking SER8) don’t fool yourselves that you will get away with the the 600 dwellings, by my calculations it should be more like 800 and if the developer comes back for a second bite of the cherry you’ll be hard pressed to stop it judging by tonight’s performance and increasing the housing density is a neat little trick they have up their sleeves once they’ve got those spades in the ground.