4500 homes on a greenfield site

I could not agree more with the sentiments of Hugh Johnson OBE in last week s Broadcast. Having visited the public exhibition, or should I say propaganda exercise, mounted by Galliard Homes it would appear that the only reason to devastate the countryside

I could not agree more with the sentiments of Hugh Johnson OBE in last week's Broadcast.

Having visited the public exhibition, or should I say propaganda exercise, mounted by Galliard Homes it would appear that the only reason to devastate the countryside of Essex is to enable the council to meet illogical house- building targets.

It is obvious this will become a ghetto commuter town as there is little local unemployment.

The representative of Galliard laughingly pointed out that there will be 'some shops' employing people and 4500 houses.

However, what he would not be drawn on was the fact this is quite possibly a development with BAA to house the thousands of people required to staff the proposed, but thanks to the efforts of SSE potentially doomed expansion, of Stansted Airport.

Sustainable housing of this scale may well be required for key workers in certain areas. I can understand London being one of them.

The hundreds of acres of brownfield land along the Thames would make the perfect area to build such numbers of housing, to ensure they are not cramped, such as the horrendous Boxted Wood design.

I dare say the value of property that can be built along the Thames to house commuters against the small cost of buying the land, already purchased and sub-leased at Boxted Wood, and throwing up cheap shacks is the sole reason.

I am not against small developments where required, but to wish to build 4500 houses in a greenfield area with limited transport access and over-stretched services already must purely be down to money and greed.

Andrew J Brooks

Stebbing