Council's new housing consultation is seriously flawed

2.24.00pm GMT Sun 14th Mar 2010

Uttlesford Conservatives' proposed new town in Elsenham and Henham.

In a letter to the local press, Councillor Catherine Dean writes "Last month Uttlesford District Council published a consultation about housing growth, which includes an assessment of the pros and cons of various options for new housing. The basis of the Council's analysis is flawed, because there has been no decision made by councillors as to what factors matter most or least in deciding what makes a good place to live. For example, the Council's consultation document gives equal value to the availability of water supplies, drainage and cultural facilities. Cultural facilities can be built with relative ease, but, as King Canute showed, water is very hard to control. The Elsenham/Henham option has serious problems with water supplies and drainage."

"The Council's consultation document does not consider the inadequate roads to a new settlement at Elsenham and Henham to be important enough to rule out development, even though other sites do not have this problem. There is clear reason to believe that the Elsenham/Henham option would cause grid-lock on local roads and in neighbouring towns and villages.

A request by Liberal Democrat councillors for these important issues to be discussed at a committee meeting before the start of the consultation was refused by the Conservative committee chairman.

The Conservatives are pressing ahead with Elsenham/Henham as the preferred option, even though there has been no discussion in the Council whether this is still the right option, and they are consulting the public before they have looked at the sustainability assessment which compares the different options and locations. This makes the whole consultation both misleading and flawed.

The Conservatives have failed to show leadership: they have left Council staff to do all the work. In responding to the consultation we must now tell the Council that a settlement at Elsenham/Henham which has the potential to cause grid-lock on local roads and in neighbouring towns and villages would not be a good place in which to live."

• Catherine Dean is a Liberal Democrat District Councillor for Elsenham & Henham

Related Link:

Click here to take part in the Council's consultation