STANSTED/M11 CORRIDOR DEVELOPMENT OPTIONS STUDY

The consultation period for this report ends on 31 October and it is vital that a huge number of objections are registered. We would like you to do this by email - which will be quicker and simpler than writing letters. The report has only been made available to the public via the web on http://www.eelgc.gov.uk/Category.asp?lsection=12&ccat=414 so it seems perfectly reasonable that our objections should also be sent electronically.
At the end of this note there are some suggestions for the points which you can make in your email but first a brief recap on the key points in the report:
The report deals with the future housing 'needs' for a large region of Essex, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire but the housing development proposals are focused within a 30 minute drive time from Stansted Airport. It is clear from reading the report that proximity to the airport dominates the thinking behind it - the need to provide houses close to where the jobs will be and close to the main arterial routes which serve the airport (M11 and the A120).

The report proposes 48,000 new houses for the local area if 'just' one extra runway were to built at Stansted. The major local housing developments would be as follows:

- Harlow would become 50% bigger with 14,600 new houses to the south west and north east to Sawbridgeworth
- Stansted Mountfitchet would become four times its present size - 7,300 new houses
- Great Dunmow would become three times its present size - 5,800 new houses
- Felsted and Elsenham would each have an adjacent new town - total of 14,100 houses
- Another new town would be built at the Hadhams if Stansted were to get two new runways
- Bishop's Stortford - 2,000 new houses to the north - in addition to 1,400 in the pipeline
-Braintree - 2,900 new houses - rising to 6,200 if two new runways were built

In effect, we would have a concrete jungle from Harlow to Elsenham and from the Hadhams to Braintree. These would be outrageous proposals at any time but to announce them just weeks before the government is due to announce its intentions for Stansted Airport is disgraceful.

The consultation period started on 22 September and runs only until 31 October. There has been virtually no publicity about this; documents are not generally available to the public; and it is not clear what questions are being asked, or of whom, or on whose behalf. The report itself is full of inaccuracies and inconsistencies. It is muddled. The whole process breaches almost every guideline within the 'Government Code of Practice on Written Consultation'.
BUT IF WE DO NOTHING ABOUT THIS REPORT, THE GOVERNMENT WILL ASSUME IT IS ACCEPTED.

There are many grounds upon which you can object. For example you can respond on the grounds of:
- a totally flawed and undemocratic consultation
- chronic over-development of a rural area
- loss of green belt
- unsustainability
- (airport) safety issues
- lack of infrastructure
- destabilisation of local communities or the environmental catastrophe which would ensue from the urbanisation of the whole area within a 15 miles radius of Stansted airport

Choose whichever issue or issues mean most to you personally. The important point is to register your objection as a matter of urgency, via email to: greg.lee@cbuchanan.co.uk

Remember to include your postal address on your email. The closing date for consultation is 31 October. YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

Norman Mead
Chairman, Stop Stansted Expansion
Campaign Office: 01279 870558
Email: info@stopstanstedexpansion.com
Web: www.stopstanstedexpansion.com