A FORMAL application has now been submitted to Thurrock Council to build up to 750 new homes on the site of an airfield in rural Thurrock.

The airfield is located adjacent to the A128 (Brentwood Road) between Orsett and Bulphan.

The bid for outline permission for the construction of the new homes follows on a previous 'scoping' submission to the council, first reported on Thurrock Nub News in February last year.

The site will be accessed by two new junctions on the A128 and will feature a medical and health facility, retail and commercial units as well as a mixed selection of new homes.

Outline plans for the site indicate there will be 182 one-bedroom apartments and 151 two-bed apartments in blocks that could be four storeys high, 90 two-bed houses, 244 three-bed houses, 67 four-bed houses and 16 five-bed houses.

The full application and the opportunity to comment can be found here.

The applicants say: "Historically the site was in agricultural use from at least the 1800s but for at least the last 20 years it has been used as a private airfield. Crossing the site are three runways. The main runway is tarmac surfaced, traversing the site from east to west. Parallel to this is a grass runway. A further grass runway crosses the main runway from northwest to south-east."

However, the use of the site as an airfield, which has long been viewed with cynicism by some local residents, has been questioned in some of the comments already post against the application on the council's planning portal.

One resident says: "I have lived in Bulphan long enough to remember when Kings Farm was just that - a farm - and the air field came much later as a private landing strip for the owner.

"This site has a colourful planning history and if it is now designated as "brown field", it is Thurrock Council that has permitted, indeed enabled this to happen.

"We need to be growing food and this could be returned to arable or livestock use. "brown field" is conversely a whitewash and an excuse for someone to make a fortune from development."

Another resident says in an objection: "The A128 is barely suitable for the traffic it already receives during a normal day. It only takes the A127, A13 or M25 to be having issues and the A128 traffic can triple. Couple that with Thurrock pushing 3500 homes at the A127 end of the road, the A128 will only get more busy and more dangerous.

"Simply pulling out onto the A127 from one of the side roads is already hectic enough and you only have to look at the number of accidents and how often the road is closed due to them to see that the A128 already isn't fit for purpose.

"There are plenty of brown field sites and old industrial estates to build on but house building companies know they can get much more money if it's built somewhere nice, like in a big field that locals have enjoyed looking over and walking through for decades.

"Please stop the urban spread along the A128 and trying to expand the small villages along it.