Saturday morning in Stansted. A team of 30-40 people set out to clean up the village of litter and rubbish that makes the place scruffy.   My wife, Catherine, our next door neighbour, Peter Brown, and I tackled Platt’s Alley leading from the recreation ground to Silver Street. We filled 13 large sacks with leaf […]

This has been a bumper week for letters and articles about Uttlesford’s local plan. I blogged last week with a piece by MP Alan Haselhurst. This has now appeared in letter and article form in four more papers; the Walden Local, Dunmow Broadcast, Saffron Walden Reporter  and Weekly News. The rest of the letters’ pages […]

A motion calling for an inquiry into Uttlesford’s planning regime will be debated by next Tuesday’s meeting of the full council. The motion has been tabled by the Liberal Democrats in response to growing public concern at repeated u-turns on the local plan and what was seen recently as attempted manipulation of a planning application […]

Congratulations to Mountfitchet Mathematics and Computing College, which has scored “Good” in their recent Ofsted inspection. The Stansted secondary school, which had been in special measures until two years ago, has been improved by head teacher Catherine Anderson, her colleagues AND THE CHILDREN. They are now planning to change the MMCC name to Forest Hall School.

The battle is on for the third time to stop employment land in the commercial centre of Stansted being turned over to 14 town houses. Last year we fought off two planning applications from Bellway Homes for 14 houses in a “gated enclave” (their description). The latest application from Land Charter Stansted Ltd and London and […]

Last year Bellway Homes were marketing new homes in an “exclusive housing enclave” at 14 Cambridge Road, Stansted before planning permission had been granted. Permission was refused – TWICE. Bellway Homes have gone away. This week Mr Henrique Darlington, who is the latest potential developer (after Bellway) of the London & Stansted Furnishing/Your Furnished/Sworder site […]

Amidst growing distrust of public bodies I am publishing a dossier about how planning for the future has been mishandled at Uttlesford District Council. Compilation of the dossier, which can be read or  downloaded here, began last June and covers known events surrounding the local development framework (LDF) and local plan (LP) preparation over the past 16 […]

“We have serious reservations about the viability of the proposed retail space…….major concerns about the viability of the proposed residential space……we are concerned that the proposed parking arrangements will not meet the needs of uses within the proposed building upon completion and into the future and have a serious impact on users of the existing […]

July was a month with lots of action on the future of our village. (Or is it time we recognized it as a town that deserves the services of a small town of over 6,000 people?) Pelham Structures have come back with a completely new style of building for the Hilton Cars site in Lower […]

Last night’s area forum in Stansted focussed on the Local Plan consultation. Several questioners raised concerns about jobs. The controversy over Uttlesford’s draft proposal to fill up commercial land behind Cambridge Road with housing instead of jobs and local services was the biggest issue. I posed the contradiction between the UDC’s announcement yesterday of plans […]