Why is no building happening?
This might seem a strange question considering that we do not want to see mass Green Belt based house building in the first place, but a good number of planning applications have been approved but little actual work has started.
We exclude the local developments at Maitland Lodge, Kennel Lane, Southend Road and Dunton Road from this. They are all underway but were approved between late 2022 and early 2024 so are ‘ahead of the game’.
However, since 2024 we believe that 10 major Green Belt planning applications in the borough have been given approval by the Basildon council planning committee. These total just under 2,200 houses. To the best of our knowledge, no construction has yet taken place.
This might be taken as good news, but that original committee approval is very unlikely to be overturned, so we must expect building to start at some point. So why the delays?
We have taken a deeper look and it appears that only four of the 10 approvals (800 houses in total) have so far received a formal decision notice. The six other applications for a combined 1,400 houses are currently going nowhere. Until then the application sits in limbo. The developer can't start work.
The decision notice, together with a signed Section 106 (S106) agreement, effectively starts the clock and the developer has three years to commence construction from that date, not the date of the original committee approval.
So far, Laindon Road Phase 1 (250 houses), Noak Bridge (400), London Road Wickford (49) and Castledon Road Wickford (97) are the only developments that have received that formal decision notice. Although we still don’t believe that any significant work has taken place at those locations and the developers have yet to submit reserved matters planning applications to finalise the layout and design. Those applications can take months months more to be approved.
We suspect that the delays in getting to the decision notice are primarily over negotiating and agreeing the S106 agreement, which legally sets down the conditions assigned to the development, such as the level of affordable housing and financial contributions towards infrastructure. Being a legal document, containing conditions worth many millions of pounds, it is understandable that they can take time. But if all parties are keen to get houses built then you’d like to think that there would be some urgency, which seems lacking in some cases.
From our perspective we doubt that Basildon council is the primary source of any delay. They have made it very clear that they want to see new houses built as soon as possible. The developers, on the other hand, might be happy to delay things, or take time to get a better negotiated position due to the sums of money involved. It might suit some to not have that three year clock ticking just now. It builds up a pipeline for the future and doesn't flood the immediate market.
We might be proved wrong, but we don’t think it’s likely that we will see any building on Laindon Road, London Road (north and south), at Noak Bridge or on several other sites in Wickford & Basildon much before the end of this year, and probably later still. In fact, Countryside Properties have publicly stated that they do not expect to start work on Laindon Road until late this year.
We might be able to take some comfort in this, especially if you live near the sites, but it’s unfortunately going to be short lived. Building, and the inevitable disruption, will sadly happen at some point.
One final key point to note, and it’s a little technical, is that from a Basildon council perspective until that decision notice is issued they do not recognise the development as ‘permissioned’. As such they cannot count any of the proposed houses towards the five year housing land supply as they simply don’t know when the building will start. This has serious implications allowing even more applications to be approved under something called ‘very spacial circumstances’ as housing targets are not being met. (See HERE for more information on this).
To be blunt, or even fair (!), Basildon council can do very little about this which yet again exposes the nonsense of the planning system. The situation is almost entirely being controlled by the developers.
Geeky Notes
It took between 173 and 1,896 days for the 10 previously mentioned planning applications to go from initial submission to the council to a planning committee decision. An average of 536 days or 1.5 years!
For the four that received a decision notice, it took a further 105 to 275 days from the committee decision. The average being 229 days or about 7 months.
Of the six still to get the decision notice, the elapsed time is now between 82 and 334 days, or an average of 157 days (5 months) since committee decision.
We exclude the local developments at Maitland Lodge, Kennel Lane, Southend Road and Dunton Road from this. They are all underway but were approved between late 2022 and early 2024 so are ‘ahead of the game’.
However, since 2024 we believe that 10 major Green Belt planning applications in the borough have been given approval by the Basildon council planning committee. These total just under 2,200 houses. To the best of our knowledge, no construction has yet taken place.
This might be taken as good news, but that original committee approval is very unlikely to be overturned, so we must expect building to start at some point. So why the delays?
We have taken a deeper look and it appears that only four of the 10 approvals (800 houses in total) have so far received a formal decision notice. The six other applications for a combined 1,400 houses are currently going nowhere. Until then the application sits in limbo. The developer can't start work.
The decision notice, together with a signed Section 106 (S106) agreement, effectively starts the clock and the developer has three years to commence construction from that date, not the date of the original committee approval.
So far, Laindon Road Phase 1 (250 houses), Noak Bridge (400), London Road Wickford (49) and Castledon Road Wickford (97) are the only developments that have received that formal decision notice. Although we still don’t believe that any significant work has taken place at those locations and the developers have yet to submit reserved matters planning applications to finalise the layout and design. Those applications can take months months more to be approved.
We suspect that the delays in getting to the decision notice are primarily over negotiating and agreeing the S106 agreement, which legally sets down the conditions assigned to the development, such as the level of affordable housing and financial contributions towards infrastructure. Being a legal document, containing conditions worth many millions of pounds, it is understandable that they can take time. But if all parties are keen to get houses built then you’d like to think that there would be some urgency, which seems lacking in some cases.
From our perspective we doubt that Basildon council is the primary source of any delay. They have made it very clear that they want to see new houses built as soon as possible. The developers, on the other hand, might be happy to delay things, or take time to get a better negotiated position due to the sums of money involved. It might suit some to not have that three year clock ticking just now. It builds up a pipeline for the future and doesn't flood the immediate market.
We might be proved wrong, but we don’t think it’s likely that we will see any building on Laindon Road, London Road (north and south), at Noak Bridge or on several other sites in Wickford & Basildon much before the end of this year, and probably later still. In fact, Countryside Properties have publicly stated that they do not expect to start work on Laindon Road until late this year.
We might be able to take some comfort in this, especially if you live near the sites, but it’s unfortunately going to be short lived. Building, and the inevitable disruption, will sadly happen at some point.
One final key point to note, and it’s a little technical, is that from a Basildon council perspective until that decision notice is issued they do not recognise the development as ‘permissioned’. As such they cannot count any of the proposed houses towards the five year housing land supply as they simply don’t know when the building will start. This has serious implications allowing even more applications to be approved under something called ‘very spacial circumstances’ as housing targets are not being met. (See HERE for more information on this).
To be blunt, or even fair (!), Basildon council can do very little about this which yet again exposes the nonsense of the planning system. The situation is almost entirely being controlled by the developers.
Geeky Notes
It took between 173 and 1,896 days for the 10 previously mentioned planning applications to go from initial submission to the council to a planning committee decision. An average of 536 days or 1.5 years!
For the four that received a decision notice, it took a further 105 to 275 days from the committee decision. The average being 229 days or about 7 months.
Of the six still to get the decision notice, the elapsed time is now between 82 and 334 days, or an average of 157 days (5 months) since committee decision.
