The biggest threat to life as we know it in the village is the proposal to build a new settlement to the Northeast. There are a variety of figures around and it is becoming quite confusing. The key developer in all this is the Fairfield Partnership and they use a public relations company Camargue who I have found extremely helpful. I tried to paraphrase the situation but got a lot wrong so Camargue sent me the following. Rather than try to simplify it I think its important for villagers to see the whole thing so here it is verbatim.

The following was written some time back but I’m leaving it here as it is still relevant.

The East of England Plan, which is currently awaiting formal approval from the Government, requires Uttlesford District Council to identify sites for a minimum of 8,000 homes during the period 2001 to 2021.  Government policy at Planning Policy Statement 3: Housing requires Uttlesford District Council in preparing its LDF Core Strategy to identify broad locations and specific sites that will enable the continuous delivery of housing for at least 15 years from the date of its adoption. Given that the Core Strategy will not be formally adopted until 2009, Uttlesford has taken the annual rate of dwellings proposed by the East of England Plan to 2021 and transposed this forward to 2024, arriving at a minimum target of 9,290 new homes for the period 2001 to 2024.  Excluding homes that have already been built during this period to date, as well as sites already having planning permission for new homes, the District Council has stated that it needs to make provision for 4,206 new dwellings up to 2024. Of these, 3,000 would be delivered at Elsenham within the period to 2024 under the District Council's recently approved Preferred Option.  I am not clear what the 2012 date referred to in the supporting text on your website relates to.

The Fairfield Partnership believes that its landholding east of Elsenham is ideally located to meet Uttlesford's growth needs. Fairfield's representations to the emerging Uttlesford LDF have set out how its land could deliver anywhere between 700/800 homes up to 3,000 and potentially more (depending on detailed masterplanning and housing densities etc). These numbers have been driven by the infrastructure that would be provided at the various housing levels - with 7-800 homes supporting a new primary school, local shop and road improvements and 3,000+ homes supporting a secondary school as well as enhanced retail provision, community infrastructure and road improvements.

As you are aware, Fairfield - through its planning consultants David Lock Associates - made representations to the East of England Plan noting that its landholding had the potential to accommodate up to 7,000 new dwellings.  Again, this housing level was based on a number of masterplanning and infrastructure assumptions and also included assumptions for the use of land around Elsenham outside of the control of The Fairfield Partnership.  However, Fairfield's current masterplanning and technical work is now focussing on the 3,000 housing figure being progressed through the District Council's LDF.

A great many road trips involve Grove Hill, Lower Street and Chapel Hill. All developed firstly from cart tracks and later during quieter times when car ownership was low. Now with car ownership at more than one per household these roads are woefully inadequate. Without buying out a huge number of properties widening is impossible.

When Crest Homes PLC tried to get planning consent for 14 Hectares of land between the playing field and Alsa Wood to build 350 houses Elsenham then stood at 750 houses. They were initially refused through the Parish Council and District Council procedures but Crest Homes PLC went to appeal. They lost the appeal and a key factor was the state of the junction at the bottom of Grove Hill. The Judge actually visited the junction at various times of the day and ruled that at the then current level of car ownership, the extra traffic represented by the development would render the junction dangerous and the appeal was thrown out.

Since then Elsenham has grown to over 1000 houses and car ownership has risen. The junction did indeed become dangerous so Essex County Council Highways installed the traffic lights restricting flow to either up or down but not both. This greatly improved safety but obviously halved the flow rate so now at peak times the traffic can back-up all the way to Gorsefield and often gridlock Lower Street and given an actual incident can be far worse blocking Chapel Hill too.

Don’t ever forget that your nearest Fire Station is at the top of Chapel Hill and this is also the route taken by most of our Police and Ambulance call-outs.