Fairfield Old

Below is the drawing that was circulating at the Henham and Elsenham’s joint Parish Council meeting. While it is clearly no longer a part of the Fairfield Partnership’s current proposals it did once exist and will have contributed to the thinking of those responsible for setting out the East of England Plan. It was found for me by the PR company acting for the Partnership and before studying it the following paragraph is the verbatim conditions under which it was released to me.
Geof

Further to our recent conversation, I have attached the schematic plan that Fairfield produced in 2005 and which was based on promoting Elsenham as a regional growth location through the Regional Spatial Strategy (East of England Plan). It was therefore produced at a time where there were uncertainties over the nature of infrastructure in the area and it includes land and infrastructure proposals outside of the control of The Fairfield Partnership.

The road bridge over the railway line indicated on the plan was at that time intended to serve significant development west of Elsenham proposed by others.  This bridge no longer forms part of our thinking on land north-east of Elsenham, especially as a footbridge link has now been provided.

We are aware of highway problems on Station Road and will take them into account in our masterplanning process.  All potential access points are being explored and no firm decision has been reached at the present time. Clearly, all road access and highways issues will be subject to detailed consultation with the relevant planning and highways authorities as the masterplanning progresses.
Concept layout04

Note particularly the “potential links” without which the road traffic bottlenecks in the existing access routes make the proposal completely unworkable. The East of England Regional Assembly has withdrawn its support for the whole East of England plan citing the absence of Government funding for the required additional infrastructure which I understand to refer to issues such as this.

We are being assured that the M11 A120 link is no longer on offer as it was an alternative to the new road BAA currently chose. The potential link to the Airport lines up with where a new road could go linking to the gravel pit roads running on from the proposed new BAA road but that was part of the G2 package. Without that it will have to use Hall Road. If Coopers End roundabout closes without G2 approval all that traffic will have to go via the Birchanger Roundabout.

Without the above two access routes the whole road network will overload and choke.
Geof