THURROCK planning councillors voted unanimously to throw out an application to build 60 homes in the green belt on the border of the borough.

At their recent meeting members debated the application to build new homes on the site of Greenwise Nurseries on Vange Park Road, Vange, close to the border with Basildon near the Five Bells roundabout.

As reported on Thurrock Nub News earlier this month, the applicants had previously obtained planning permission to build 30 self build homes on the site, but they now want to build more 'ordinary houses, with just 18 to be custom-build and 21 of the rest to be 'affordable' homes.

Members of the committee were unanimously against the change, with Cllr Sue Little summing up the opposition when saying: "My thoughts are, we have go so many people doing this - putting in say 30, then as soon as they have got that, they think they can have 60 which I don't think is correct.

"Also, just because we have a housing need, it doesn't mean to say you have got to put people in boxes as it were and these are considerably smaller than what was proposed.

"The previous application was for buildings that were substantially better than what they are proposing now. This is a step too far."

Committee member Steve Taylor, who represents the CPRE countryside charity, formerly known as the Council for the Protection of Rural England, said: "One of the things here that people will have heard me say a good many times is this issue we have discussed where we grant planning permission, people do nothing with it so from the council's point of view it is trying to provide the sites to hit the housing target or at least aim at them.

"Then the developers don't develop it and they come back three or four years later with a number that doubles.

"My biggest concern is that this site - and I was never big on it in the first place - is that if you look at the volume of housing and the intensity of the build on that site and if you looked at the access road to that site which has got cars and vans parked on it leaves it as a single track lane effectively to get in and out of that site.

"To get 60 houses you could typically get between 120 and 180 cars. You will have all those vehicles trying to get in and out of what appeared to be just a lane.

"That's a good enough reason to object."

Cllr Lee Watson added: "I am slightly concern that this is doubled and looks very overcrowded, Affordability in housing I am very much in favour for but this is sat in green belt and it sticks out a little bit."

Cllr Gary Byrne questioned the validity of the argument that the site would offer homes that people could afford, saying: "We have reached a point where affordable housing is still unaffordable", while Cllr Georgette Polley said she wanted to know why people had to have substandard building just because they were affordable.

Cllr Terry Piccolo said: "I think one the things that attracted people to the first application was that they were going to be self-built and built for individuals which put a completely different context on the site and a reason to release part of the green belt. I am afraid with this application it is just going to look like any other housing estate. For the applicant to come back and put in more pre built houses than self built, is just not acceptable."

The application was unanimously rejected.