Disconnected from reality. That was the defining feature of the transport assessment that councillors were asked to accept at the Planning Policy Committee on 7 January.
This was not a minor technical paper. It was a 500-page transport assessment built on 2022 baseline data. It is meant to underpin the next Local Plan. Councillors were not asked to approve it. They were asked to note it. Even that proved difficult.
The meeting exposed a growing gap between modelled assumptions and the daily experience of residents across the district.
The first warning came from a member of the public. Mr Pryor challenged the robustness of the 2022 traffic data. He spoke about junctions he drives every day. The model does not reflect what he sees on the ground. His point was simple. If the data does not match lived experience at peak times, it should not be accepted without challenge.
The response from the chair was revealing. Officers rely on peak hour averages drawn from multiple sources, including Google Maps. Averages smooth out failure. Anyone who uses Hawk Hill, Fairglen, Ashingdon Road, or Rayleigh Weir knows the worst moments define the network. The assessment filters those moments out.
The same disconnect appeared around the assumption of modal shift. The assessment assumes 5 to 15 percent of journeys will move from cars to walking or cycling. Councillors from all sides pushed back. Roads are narrow. Pavements are inconsistent. Cycle routes are fragmented or missing. Many villages have no realistic alternative to driving. Even the chair accepted the uncomfortable truth. Traffic reduction should not rest on behavioural change, which residents know does not happen.
When the committee reached the transport assessment itself, the concerns deepened.
My colleague, Councillor Cripps described the wider network risk. Several junctions already operate at Category F. – A failure at one junction can create gridlock elsewhere. Residents experience this daily. The model treats junctions in isolation. Real traffic simply does not behave like that.
Councillor Steptoe grounded the debate in reality. An 11-mile journey taking 50 minutes is not theoretical. It is routine for many residents.
I raised concerns about what was missing. Existing Section 106 commitments, including mitigation at the Down Hall Road junction, were absent from the baseline. If known interventions are not included, the outputs lose credibility. I also made it clear that councillors should not be expected to accept disputed technical conclusions without the consultants present to answer questions directly.
Officers reminded members that this was an interim baseline and that national policy only intervenes where impacts are deemed severe. That threshold may suit policy tests. It does not reflect how residents experience congestion today.
The committee made the right decision. It refused to quietly note the document. The item was pushed to Full Council, with an all-member briefing required first.
There is a wider point here. If the Conservative-led administration accepts this evidence without challenge, it will be sleepwalking into another failed Local Plan. Rochford has been here before. Plans have failed because the evidence did not stand up to scrutiny or reality.
Lessons should have been learnt from past failures. Those lessons must be learnt now. Transport evidence must start from how people actually move today. If it does not, the plan built on it will fail residents again.
