With the approval of the J.P.S.G. Chris and I made additional copies of your letters.  Whilst we recognise that we have not received copies from every one, on the morning of the last day of the consultation we had well over a thousand plus a hundred or more from outside our villages.  Every one condemned the plan to build the eco-town.  Additionally, we felt that because this plan had been devised on the back of the notorious 'Preferred Option Four' we decided that the D.C.L.G. should have copies of the letters you sent in to the Uttlesford Consultation earlier this year as well.  These we had bound into 32 spiral backed volumes.  In total between the two consultations well over two thousand letters.

Of the meeting, Don said,

Firstly, may we thank all who wrote letters, came to London, donated money (we have had a great response from the latest membership scheme) prepared posters and banners and a special thanks to Gary Willis at Millways for providing the binders, paper and printing facilities for the letter copying, Ken Forbes for spiral binding our option4 letters and Jonathon Leech and Margaret Shaw for contributing pictures.

Click here to view a damning report

See and hear the speeches through Herts and Essex Video - Click Here

Minutes now available - click here

A good representation from Henham and Elsenham attended a meeting of the Environment Committee at the U.D.C Council Chambers, Saffron Walden where two items on the  agenda were of considerable interest to our villages. Prior to the meeting, two speakers, Tasmin Lees, a schoolgirl from Elsenham and Jason Barlow, a journalist from Henham addressed the committee members.

Tasmin speech, (click here to view) concentrated on two main points. Firstly, the Overview of Representations Received, (introduced in item 7 of the agenda see below) failed to produce 'real figures' and seemed to imply that only residents of Henham and Elsenham had objected to option 4.  Secondly, she was critical of U.D.C. in that whilst they had stated their opposition to Eco-towns they had left it until two weeks before the consultation closed before circulating a leaflet asking people to respond but giving no guidance as to "why the proposal is nonsense." She finished by pleading to U.D.C. to support their objection to an eco-town by removing option 4.

Jason was far more direct and critical about the U.D.C. and likened the situation they had created as worthy of a 'Tom Sharpe' novel.  He concluded by saying,
'Surely a District Council which is genuinely committed to stopping an eco-town being built on its own territory would declare Option 4 as unworkable and withdraw it.' (click here to read a draft of his speech).

The meeting then commenced and it was some time before Item 6 was reached, viz.

To decide U.D.C's 'Response to D.C.L.G's Eco-town Consultation'.  To this end, Roger Harborough,  Head of Planning, had produced a Briefing Paper  to which he spoke at length.

A prolonged discussion ensued about what should be included in the response.  Pleas to remove option 4, (including an excellent representation from Councillor David Morson), were rejected on the grounds that the full process of evaluating the LDF had not been completed.  The main fear was that the Council felt that they might be liable to legal challenge should they do so at this stage. However, apart from this, for the first time there were signs that the represented political parties were beginning to work together. The original wording of the response had been centred about U.D.C.'s opposition to eco-towns per se rather than concentrating on the Elsenham proposal, it being a Planning Department opinion that this was an early stage in the proceedings and that a more 'site specific' responses could be introduced later. Councillor Catherine Dean proposed a number of amendments however, which included stressing that considerable local opposition had already been received to building on the site, that it was a green-field site and not a brown-field one and that there were serious doubts about the public and private transport infrastructure.  There was a unanimous vote on the item, the full wording of which we may see in due course.
 

Item  7 was on the 'Core Strategy Preferred Options Consultation', and was to provided councillors with an overview of representations received.
(Please see a 35 page Overview of Representations Received).  Roger Harborough defended its content and lack of detail.  He stated that a fuller report would be available for the Autumn meeting.

Thanks to all those who attended.  A senior Councillor said that a good public turnout had made a lot of difference to the quality of the debate and its outcome. We left the meeting at 10.10pm. - BB

The following is taken from the Daily Telegraph book, ' People Power' where a passage from The New Statesman 2004 is quoted:

You and Yours on Radio 4 on Thursday 22nd May
The Chief Executive of the Environment Trust was interviewed about and concluded that the whole pressure by developers and Government towards Eco-developments was "complete madness" there were so many cities and urban areas in UK that could make good use of the investment that would otherwise go to Eco Town developments. He also made the point that as regards social housing the Government would be picking up the service charges which would put a huge future charge on the State very much similar to PFI. Click here to read a transcript of what was said.

ECO-CON

I unreservedly believe that that attaching the prefix 'Eco' to government planning initiatives is a complete and utter confidence trick.  We all understand the need to address global warming, properly conserving energy and the the discipline of re-cycling waste. However, in the midst of the proposal to build a so called eco-town in Elsenham/Henham, we find that we have in Henham perhaps one of the most advanced eco-friendly houses in the country.  This house was built at approximately 30 - 40% above the cost of what an average similar sized house.  How is it possible that our government could believe their own spin and that of developers that an eco-town, and in particular the proportion of low cost affordable housing, is in any way financially viable?  This is just an excuse to appropriate nearly a square mile of prime arable land for building houses close to Stansted Airport; land which has contributed to feeding this country for well over a thousand years and is more than ever needed now.  It is nothing less than vandalism of our countryside on a huge scale. How can it in any way can the proposal be contributing to making our planet a better place?

On Tuesday 13th May. Simon Lee, the owner of the aforementioned house, addressed the full council meeting of Uttlesford District Council on the subject. Please click here to see what he said. - BB

E-Petition

Please visit the on-line petition to 10 Downing Street, viz:-

'We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Abandon plans to build an Eco Town in Elsenham & Henham.'

which you can find by going to:-

 Abandon plans to build an Eco Town in Elsenham & Henham

Please forward this to all your friends and family so they can sign up as well

On Thursday 3rd April we were devastated to hear that the land to the north-east of Elsenham (most of which is in the Parish of Henham) had been put on a short list of 15 locations to be developed into Eco Towns (click here to view). The scale of the proposed development is far beyond what was envisaged by Option 4.  Later on this year the list will be reduced to a final list of ten. 

The announcement was made by Caroline Flint, the Minister for Housing and Planning.  The Department of Communities and Local Government have published a document called 'Eco- Towns, Living a Greener Future' which may be viewed by clicking on the picture.

The Joint Parish Council Steering Group met on Thursday 10th April when the matter was high on the agenda.  We will be holding public meetings on Wednesday 16th April (see above for times, etc.) Clearly, we are now fighting on two fronts.  The application for the Eco-Town is based on the U.D.C's preferred Option 4.  However at a press call on Friday 4th April at Elsenham station car park (which overlooks the blighted landscape), Uttlesford Conservative Councillors turned out in force together with our MP, Sir Alan Haselhurst, to state their total opposition to an Eco-Town in Uttlesford.  How can they U.D.C. Councillors still be in favour of their preferred Option 4 whilst being against an Eco-Town in the same place? 

A little while ago, Fairfield Partnership supplied a 44 page document called 'Elsenham - A Strategic Master Plan Vision (dated January 2008) to Parish Councils. I have received permission from them to reproduce it on this site with a reminder that all diagrams maps etc are subject to copy write and must not be reproduced without permission.  This is the basis of their submission to the Government.  Click on the picture to view it.

It seems that  our letters are now on the system

However, we need you to check your entries to see whether they have been recorded correctly.  Please click here to go to Limehouse. When you get there, click on the 'Search' button on the menu and enter your surname in the Search field. 

If you are not happy with how your views have been represented, please let the Planning Policy Team at Uttlesford know at planning@uttlesford.gov.uk  and if you so wish, copy your complaint to us at saveourvillage@live.co.uk.

As at 2nd June the following figures had been recorded against each option
(thanks to Diane Bush for compiling the totals)