And so the Bloody Garden Villages look dead and buried in their current proposed form. The Government Inspector has written to the four local authorities, telling them pretty much 'could try harder' braintree.gov.uk/download/downl… [pdf]
OUCH.
Thready, thread, etc.
The background to this is the three new towns that CBC, ECC, Braintree District Council and Tendring District Council all want to build around North Essex. We're talking up to 40,000 new homes.
Conclusion from Mr Inspector: "It will be evident that I consider that the Garden Community proposals contained in the Plan are not adequately justified and have not been shown to have a reasonable prospect of being viably developed. As submitted, they are therefore unsound."
Plus: "I would advise that simultaneously bringing forward three GCs on the scale proposed in the submitted Plan is likely to be difficult to justify. This is mainly because of the difficulty of co-ordinating the provision of infrastructure."
Other selected highlights [probably best for any Bloody Garden Village land grabbing local Cllr type to either stop reading or pour a bloody large G&T...]
'Affordable' housing: "The GC policies seek 30% affordable housing as part of the overall housing provision in each GC. Because of the shortcomings in the assessment, its conclusions over the deliverability of affordable housing at each of the three GCs cannot be relied upon.
On employment: "It is surprising that the GC policies contain no specific figures for the amount of employment land or floorspace to be provided at each of the GCs. If the sites provided do not match the demands of the market, the jobs will not come."
This is something that @120CAUSE has been trying to tell CBC Cabinet all along. TBF, others such as @CllrSimonCrow have also raised this at Full Council, only to be fobbed off without an answer.
On transport: "It is by no means clear that adequate allowances for the costs of necessary transport infrastructure have been built into the viability assessment." There's more...
"Without more evidence to show that the necessary transport infrastructure for the GCs could be provided viably and in a timely fashion, the strong positive scores for the chosen strategy in respect of sustainable travel behaviour and accessibility are unwarranted."
On CPO: "If the NEAs intend to use compulsory purchase to acquire development land at a lower value than could be achieved through negotiation, clear evidence would need to be provided that such action is capable of achieving that outcome. That has not been demonstrated."
Which kinda puts all the bargaining power in the hands of the landowners...
Perhaps the most damning comment from Mr Inspector comes when considering the cost of the Bloody Garden Villages: "It has not been demonstrated that the GCs proposed in the submitted Plan are financially viable."
Follow the money, etc.
On health: "There is no substantial evidence to show that the chosen spatial strategy would have strong benefits in terms of health and the vitality and viability of centres."
Nice sign off from Mr Inspector to the four #localgov Councils though: "I expect that this letter will come as a disappointment to the NEAs after all the hard work and resources they have committed to bringing the Section 1 Plan forward for examination."
All of this will actually make for pleasant weekend reading for @yourcolchester Leader @MarkAlanCory. It means that he won't have to support something that he has 'many issues' with.
Back to the drawing board, Comrades.
