16/06/2022
Hi everybody.
I have been the subject of quite a lot of bad language this week as I'm sure you can imagine and all I can say is that I'm sorry my decision on the Local Plan took you all by surprise. I should have communicated better in the run up and made public the facts that I based my decision on well in advance. For that I am deeply sorry.
But in truth I had not made up my mind which way to vote until after I had begun to speak in the hall on Monday.
I agree 100% that we should not be building on the Wick. That is without question. The only of disagreement is that many seem to think the wick is safer in a Colchester without a local plan at all than on with a heavily restrictive local plan.
The current local plan puts 1000 homes over 40% of the Wick, and stipulates a 30 year stewardship of the rest, including re-creating the acid grassland. Now let me be very clear here, that is 1000 homes too many. But after adoption the plan can be reviewed and a replacement site for those 1000 homes can be found. My intention is to initiate that review process to swap out the Wick the day after adoption. If we are savvy about how we do this it can be done, all we need to do is signal this intent, and then stall the DIO, who are the ones selling the land, for time.
While we have a local plan we can direct development and have a say in infrastructure decisions and make sure that developments contribute to infrastructure like schools, hospitals, open spaces over the whole of Colchester.
The alternative to this is the argument that we can refuse this local plan and write a new one up without the Wick in it. There are lots of arguments for this but the biggest arguments against are that there is no way it can be realistically done in the time available to us, and while we are without a developed local plan there is a legal presumption in favour of ‘sustainable’ development.
Central govt have dictated that we have to get a local plan in place before the end of 2023 or we face losing our planning powers to Chelmsford. Or more accurately handing Tory controlled Essex County Council control over the implementation of a new local plan.
I have been shown some evidence that a local plan can be adopted in as little as seven months. This however is just the time from publication to adoption, it excludes the time taken to actually write the plan. Our current plan spent over a year being examined by the inspector since publication, and took over 5 years to actually write.
If anyone can actually come up with a realistic timeline that gets a new LP in place in the time available to us, or even provide an example of where it has been done previously, I will love you forever. Lots of people are telling me it can be done but as soon as I ask how, they change the subject. I’m serious here, give me the evidence to change my opinion and I will do so.
The second big problem with starting over is that we have been using the emerging local plan to demonstrate our 5 year plan to supply of housing allocation. Without that in place, we would be subject to the presumption in favour of ‘sustainable’ development.
That legal tidbit would mean that we would be required to accept any planning application unless we have exceptional ground to refuse. The only bits of Colchester Borough that meet the criteria are the Deadham Vale AONB, and some individual buildings.
The Wick is not on this list.
Without a local plan we would be forced to accept ANY planning application to build on the Wick.
So, we basically have two options, adopt the local plan and try to get the Wick taken out before a developer decides the restrictions on the site are worth it, or retract the local plan and hope that in the free-for all the wick gets left alone. The Wick which has ready made transport and infrastructure links in a desirable part of Colchester and whose owner is actively looking to sell it for development.
On Monday night I said I disagreed with people who say we are “stuck between a rock and a hard place” because that implies that there is some means of escape if only we can find it. I believe we are stuck in a real world “trolley problem”. There is no good solution here. We can either possibly build over part of the Wick, or we can rely on the kindness of developers to save the Wick and every other green space in Colchester. I believe adopting the local plan with a view to revision as soon as possible is the least bad option.
I will always speak the truth and do everything in my power to protect not only the environment but Colchester as a whole.
But I will not be party to greenwash or gesture politics.
