NORTH OF BURNHAM ROAD DEVELOPMENT, PLANNING UPDATE

The Planning application for the development to the North of our town is still awaiting more information from the developers in respect of main areas of local Councillors' and residents’ concerns, in fact Essex County Council (ECC) have declined to comment until these concerns are addressed.

The Developer is now working on a revised Transport Assessment which will be submitted to Chelmsford City Council (CCC) Planning and available to the public before the application is determined. Once this is received there will be a public consultation period of up to three weeks. It is now likely that this will take place in the late summer/autumn this year. If the revisions are extensive, we will ask CCC for a longer consultation period to be allowed.

The applicant will need to demonstrate to the satisfaction of both CCC and ECC, the Highway Authority, that the impact of their proposed development can be appropriately mitigated. Amendments or acceptable solutions will need to be provided for individual junctions that might otherwise become overcapacity with the additional development traffic. Essex County Council will not issue a recommendation of approval to CCC for the application until such time that they are satisfied the development proposals will successfully mitigate the development’s impact. The revised application will be available on the CCC planning portal.

Some residents will have received a letter from Stephen Robinson, the Liberal Democrat Leader of Chelmsford City Council, implying that SWF Councillors did not lodge any concerns about the Masterplan with him. The implication that we were inactive is a blatant slur on all of us. In fact, your SWF City and County Councillors raised concerns with the appropriate Cabinet member (not Stephen Robinson), and at every opportunity throughout the whole Masterplan process, as did the Town Council. Anybody following events knows this to be the case.