BAG view on Basildon Council’s development of their Local Plan
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We recognise that our elected councillors, who are responsible for signing off the Local Plan, are like putty in the hands of the Council’s professional planners who use taxpayers’ money to employ specialist consultants to tell them what they want to hear.
We acknowledge that setting planning policy and directing plans are complex tasks: we are told that many councillors on Basildon Borough Council do not attend briefing sessions on the Local Plan. Is it too hard or do they just not care? We recognise that Basildon Council will seek maximum revenue from house building regardless of the impact on local house prices and Billericay’s families. Billericay is Basildon’s ‘cash cow’. |
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There has been an incredible increase in Basildon’s housing target since residents were last consulted in 2016 (from 15,000 to 20,000 in the borough – by over 60% in Billericay). We believe Basildon Council should have repeated its Regulation 18 Public Consultation on the latest draft Local Plan before proceeding to the current stage. This has not occurred, even though some Billericay Councillors called for it at the March 2018 Sporting Village meetings, because of Government threats to take over Basildon’s delayed Local Plan.
We are dismayed by the way residents’ contributions to the Local Plan consultations have been ignored. Stakeholders in the Local Plan, according to Basildon’s officers, are landowners and developers, not residents. We have no option to revealing the failures and shortfalls in the process and the lack of soundness in the plan to be submitted to the Planning Inspectorate.
Around one half of the proposed new houses in the Borough will be for people who wish to migrate from elsewhere, primarily from London. London’s Mayor has vowed to protect HIS Green Belt. We are losing OURS.
We wonder whether some of our elected Councillors see our Borough as becoming another suburb of London.
We are dismayed by the way residents’ contributions to the Local Plan consultations have been ignored. Stakeholders in the Local Plan, according to Basildon’s officers, are landowners and developers, not residents. We have no option to revealing the failures and shortfalls in the process and the lack of soundness in the plan to be submitted to the Planning Inspectorate.
Around one half of the proposed new houses in the Borough will be for people who wish to migrate from elsewhere, primarily from London. London’s Mayor has vowed to protect HIS Green Belt. We are losing OURS.
We wonder whether some of our elected Councillors see our Borough as becoming another suburb of London.
