My contribution to the March edition of Stansted’s “Link” magazine follows:

A medical centre: Last November’s planning application for a medical centre plus a retail floor and residential apartments at 2 Lower Street is still being evaluated.  A decision is unlikely before March. April is possible. The delay is because the developer had not provided enough information about highway design and safety with the application or by early February. The crucial omission was a pedestrian crossing in Lower Street which the highways authority says will be necessary. A crossing will have a knock-on effect on businesses in Lower Street which rely on street parking; several parking spaces would be lost. I am expecting further public consultation once the details have been produced. I remain of the opinion that this scheme has to be done properly. We can’t risk cutting corners, approving an unworkable scheme and then having to pick up the pieces for decades to come. The delay is frustrating.

Housing sites & consultation: Both Ray Woodcock and I wrote in the last Link about Uttlesford’s Local Development Framework (LDF). The council is consulting on 14 sites in and around (mostly around) Stansted with a total capacity of over 2,000 homes. No one I know is suggesting all these sites should be approved for future development. They have all been put forward by landowners, so the public can now say what it thinks. My line will be “no more major housing growth until Forest Hall Park has been completed and integrated. I also think that sites to the north and west will open up Stansted to a western bypass, even more development and damage to the Stort Valley. 

…..including jobs: Another concern is a proposal for housing development on two adjacent sites designated STA 10 and STA 11 behind 10-28 Cambridge Road; behind Your Furnished, Tesco and the Co-op. These are commercial sites which have for many years provided valuable local services and jobs. They are in Stansted’s prime retail and commercial area. The council has policies that deter owners from turning this sort of area over to housing simply to make short-term financial gains that might undermine the long-term viability of areas such as Cambridge Road for jobs, shops and other businesses.

I am very unhappy that council officers have approached the owner about whether they might like to submit an early planning application for about 20 homes at this location. The potential developer has been knocking on doors in the area trying to drum up public support. It seems that the sites were selected for favoured, fast-track planning at a private meeting of councillors last July. Yet the selection criteria were “currently unoccupied or a bad neighbour employment site”. I don’t think that description fits 10-28 Cambridge Road. This part of the LDF process has not been transparent.

The consultation on the Local Development Framework runs until Monday March 5^th. Be sure to have your say!

Developers’ money for improvements: The final item is about Foresthall Park and over £1 million of money which the developers are obliged to hand to Uttlesford DC to pay for community facilities to meet the needs of the existing and future occupants of the new homes. Uttlesford’s cabinet agreed to hand one-third of this money to Birchanger Parish Council over the heads of all the councillors from Stansted. Yet the 700 residents of the park said in a survey in January that they look to Stansted for their local services, not Birchanger village. At the time of writing, Stansted councillors were continuing to fight their corner on behalf of Forest Hall Park residents.