Fearful residents unite in opposition to planned 2,000 home development in rural Thurrock
ANGRY and fearful residents in a village on the Thurrock border packed into their local hall for a meeting which aims to muster opposition to a huge housing development they believe will swamp their homes, ruin the local environment and blight local traffic and community facilities and including education and health.
More than 100 residents attended the meeting last night (Thursday, 14 November) at West Horndon Village Hall, called by local parish councillors to focus opposition to the scheme for around 2,000 new homes in the area.
Though West Horndon sits in Brentwood administratively, the land for the development – planned to be called Horndon St Marys – sits in Thurrock which will be the authority that determines planning approval.
Thurrock Nub News highlighted submission of the application last month – see story via this link.
It is land that has already been designated as a potential area for housing development by Thurrock Council in its draft local plan (published last year), prompting residents to fear the worst.
They have also been less than impressed with consultation organised by Thurrock Council and believe that many of the people who have a right to comment about what is happening on their doorstep and will have a significant impact on their lives are being ignored already.
Hence, they hope to be able to pull together an effective local campaign to get their voices heard.
The meeting last night was chaired by parish council member Gemma Houghton, who confirmed today that afterit she has relayed many of the complaints about a lack of effective consultation to the council.
She told Nub News: "I was able to contact the planning officer dealing with this, Elizabeth Reynolds, and informed her that many residents, right on the edge of this development had not received the letter alerting to them to the consultation from the council.
"Initially she said that the council were not legally empowered to extend the area of consultation, particularly as many of those affected come under the jurisdiction of another local authority. West Horndon Parish Council, for example, was not contacted. I was told 'neighbourhood notification letters' are only required to be sent to addresses immediateley adjacent to the site.
"She added notices had been posted in three 'prominent' locations near the site - Clavering Gardens, Bulphan Village Hall and West Horndon Station car park!
"I am hoping that our argument that this is such a big scheme that everyone's view is important will convince the council to extend the period of neighbourhood consultation, which is currently set to end on Thursday, 28 November. And that they will write to all West Horndon and Bulphan residents. And following our meeting last night we are determnined to make sure that every local resident is aware of this plan which impacts on all their lives.
"The scale and nature of this development will change West Horndon forever, it will be overwhelmed by it."
"Brentwood Council recently gave permission for a huge development of up to 3,700 homes just across the A128 at Dunton Hills that will have a significant impact on West Horndon and the local environment.
(See Nub News story on that development via this link).
"Now we have the threat of another massive green belt development as near to our doorstep as it could possibly be. Residents are angry, concerned, somewhat overwhelmed by the potential change in their lives and their local environment and, perhaps worst of all, there is a sense there is little they can do about it.
"As a parish council we are working to ensure their voice is heard and we will be campaigning strongly against this.
"meantime, I would urge everybody who can to take part in the current consultation, either online by logging in at Thurrock Council's planning portal and making your views known (Click here: https://regs.thurrock.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=makeComment&keyVal=SKQMEFQGKTR00) or writing to the planning department at Thurrock Council, New Road, Grays, RM17 6SL, quoting planning application 24/01051/OUT)."
The full application can be viewed by clicking here.
More than 100 objections from local people, including residents of neighbouring Bulphan, have already been registered.
A driving force behind the application, and the agent for the submission, is Iceni Projects - a company associated with many controversial green belt projects across Thurrock.
Iceni was heavily involved in the successful application to the Planning Inspectorate to build up to 1,000 homes in a green belt at East Tilbury. It was described as 'another nail in the green belt's coffin by local ward councillor Fraser Massey – a sentiment that many of those present at last night's meeting fear could be echoed on their doorstep.
The decision on East Tilbury by the government, and the decision by Thurrock Council not to have mounted effective opposition to the plans, has been condemned by South Basildon and East Thurrock MP James McMurdock, whose constituency includes Bulphan. Ms Houghton has contacted him – and other local and regional politicians – to try and gain their support in opposing Horndon St Marys.
Thurrock's local plan was due to become reality in 2026, but that has now been controversially put back to 2028.
The number of controversies surround Thurrock Council's planning department go back to the turn of the millennium, if not beyond. Thurrock, a unitary Council, was deemed so bad that in 2004 the Thurrock Thames Gateway Development Corporation took over planning control but it proved an ill-fated move that failed to deliver a workable plan for the borough and was scrapped amid local government minister Eric Pickles' 'bonfire of the quangos' in 2022.
Thurrock resumed planning control on the demise of the Corporation but its track record has also largely been logged as one of failing to deliver coherent, cogent plans. Last year a motion from Thurrock's group of independent councillors won unanimous support from members at a specially convened extraordinary meeting of the council.
It called for an independent inquiry into Thurrock's planning department and the lack of a local plan but the inquiry has not yet been commissioned. A peer review of Thurrock's planning department in 2023 also largely damned its ongoing performance.
Following the Independent group-called extraordinary meeting in September, there was another special council meeting on 6 December to discuss the 'Local Plan: Initial Proposals document'.
At that meeting a further residents' consultation was proposed. The then council leader Cllr Andrew Jefferies said: "This is not only an opportunity for the residents to have their say on the future of the borough but to also show residents that the council had learnt lessons from the past and would not be repeating them.
"To build a better future for Thurrock it is now time to listen to residents, to be honest with them."
However, a fight for an inquiry continues and is set to be discussed at another extraordinary meeting called by concerned Thurrock councillors, provisionally set for Thursday, 28 November.
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