Proposals to create three new garden communities across North Essex will help protect existing towns and villages and create new jobs a council leader has said.
Speaking ahead of a meeting of the Council’s Full Council meeting, Braintree District Council Leader Graham Butland stressed the need to combat the threat of opportunist developers by supporting the sustainable developments which would be built over a 30 year period.
He said: “In North Essex, as in other parts of the country, our population continues to grow, and the question we should all be asking is where will our children and grandchildren live and work in years to come?
“Housing is an emotive subject, and as with anything new, very often the view tends to be that we support it as long as it’s not near me, but this is a nettle we have to grasp.
“The risk of not planning for the long-term, and demonstrating we have a credible and viable plan, is that we will continue to see the opportunist and predatory planning applications with limited infrastructure and job provision that frustrate and anger communities so much.”