Click on the Public Meeting Notice above for a larger image
Meeting is January 12th 2007
Broomfield Community Centre
Starts at 7:30PM

Highways & Transportation Policy Development Group December 7th 2006

Essex County Council

Highways and Transportation Policy Development Group

December 7th 2006

For current thinking about the North East Study and Consultation Reports see:

http://agendas.essexcc.gov.uk/comadDocuments/meeting/1497/HT4106.pdf


Note that this supports Route D and though a majority of those who responded to the question about the cross-valley road said yes in principle, the result is not considered to be meaningful one way or the other because no cross-valley preferences were selected from the options consulted on.


Lower Thames Crossing - for an update on Essex 'thinking' see

http://agendas.essexcc.gov.uk/comadDocuments/meeting/1497/HT4206.pdf

We are sure that the Lower Thames Crossing is a key aspect of the overall transport strategy at Naitonal and International level which will have a major bearing on the design considerations for the A130 Chelmsford North East Study outcomes.

Urgent Actions Chelmsford Borough Council Local Development Framework Consultation

December 19th 2006 is the last date to express your concerns about the Local Development Framework. (LDF)


We all must now act - December 19th is the deadline.

Please write to the Chelmsford Borough Council, Duke St. Chelmsford. Explain that you disagree with some or all of the following parts of the LDF.

1. Object to the lack of real options and choice in the Public Consultation on new-homes sites. Ask why nothing has been included for consultation on the 'old Boreham Airfield'.

Note - the area around the Airfield is plenty big enough to support all the proposed 'Green-field' new homes required as Chelmsford's contribution to the East of England Plan. This will include a new Secondary School and sustainable neighbourhood just like Gt Baddow, or Broomfield or Springfield for example.

2. Explain your horror at plans to site at least One Thousand new homes in Broomfield.

Note also that there are plans for an early revision of the LDF, probably within 2 years. That could trail the addition of many more homes in Broomfield.

Numbers in excess of 250 will destroy the essential nature of the ancient village and cuts right across the results of the Village Consultation conducted in 2004 and published as the Parish Plan, 2005.

The Broomfield Parish Plan (2005) consultation said that (page 22) "On the question of how many houses people would accept in order to achieve a relief road to the hospital, the largest single group (48%) said "none": 46% would accept up to 250 homes - including a smaller percentage who would accept more than 250."


3. Demand the Protection of Historically Identified Green Wedges - Nothing, nothing at all, across Chelmer Valley.

Note: there is a lot of hear-say information buzzing around about traffic in Broomfield Road. Of course, the traffic is there. But it is important to ask for reliable measured traffic flow data which demonstrates that a Cross-Valley Road will do anything significantly to ease the Broomfield Road jams and noise.

Remember, what carries traffic out of Broomfield will also bring traffic into Broomfield.

The Plans to develop Broomfield Hospital have been put on hold with a promise of nothing as large as was originally proposed. This news in November 2006 must modify the LDF Core Strategy.

And how much traffic will one-thousand new homes generate? For information, there are 1,700 homes in all of Broomfield - see Parish Plan page 6.

4. Protest that Corridor E as shown by Essex County Council for part of the A130 upgrade, neither solves the A130 National Traffic needs nor provides an adequate Chelsmford Borough infra-structure.

Corridor E should be abandoned because local traffic and national traffic must be separated.

Don't forget that there will be a new Lower Thames Crossing. All the major roads are built on the Kent side from the Isle of Sheppey to the Kent motorway network. On the Essex side, the A130 is an excellent road towards Southend.

Do you really think it makes sense to have lorries trundling from Europe, up the M2, across the Thames and then on to the A130 to find them twisting around Corridor E?

Snarled up roundabouts will inrease the tangles of traffic when the daily tally of one hundred thousand vehicles or more level is reached on the new Lower Thames Crossing. For comparison, the Dartford Crossing carries about 200,000 vehicles daily. It began life 40 years ago at 12,000 each day.


5. Support A130 Route D option only. Tell the Chelmsford Council that. And write to Essex County Council, Highways Department saying the same thing. It is the only option that keeps local traffic away from International and National Traffic.


6. Please tell your friends - phone them, email them. Ask them to visit this blog to see what's happening in their neighbourhood. And then to join the army of letter-writers to the Chelmsford Borough Council to oppose the LDF on these grounds.

Blog address http://a130-chelmsford.blogspot.com/


We believe that key parts of the LDF are defective, and, unchallenged will lead to a hugely damaging impact on Chelmsford. Our homes and families will live in a despoiled community for generations to come.


There is another Option - use the 'brown-field' site of the old Boreham Airfield.

It's so obviously common sense: we wonder "Why has it not seen the light of day?"

Do you think there may be votes in it somewhere?