New town proposal an undemocratic abuse of power
The decision by the Lib-Dem/Labour coalition running Colchester City Council to propose a new town of 10-24,000 new houses at Mark’s Tey is a shocking betrayal of local people.
The decision to submit this proposal to the government’s New Towns’ Commission looking for sites to start building 100 new towns “before the next election” was an outrageous abuse of power. It bypassed normal democratic procedures – being neither formally approved by the cabinet nor were those of us on the local plan committee even informed of it.
The site is wholly unsuitable with the garden-community originally proposed there having been rejected by the planning inspector in 2020, partly because of totally inadequate transport links. Since then, not only do we not have the funding for the A120 scheme, but the government has just cancelled the desperately needed A12 improvements.
What is also clear is that is that this proposal did not come out of nowhere. At the 5 November meeting of the council’s local plan committee, four Labour councillors – Martyn Warnes, Dave Harris, Mike Lilley and Lee Scordis used the ‘Have your say’ section, to argue that the council should build a massive development at Mark’s Tey. In May Labour formed a coalition with the Lib-Dems to control the council. Now this is presented to a government commission as official council policy – despite never having been approved by either the cabinet or local plan committee.
However, a new town at Mark’s Tey is highly likely to be in addition to the 20,000+ new houses the Labour government have already required Colchester to build – and which we already lack adequate water, sewage and transport infrastructure for.
This is a shoddy and wholly undemocratic way to run a local council.
Our beautiful local area should not be sacrificed in this manner.
Dr Martin Parsons
Conservative Spokesman on Sustainability
And Colchester City Councillor for Mersea and Pyefleet
The decision by the Lib-Dem/Labour coalition running Colchester City Council to propose a new town of 10-24,000 new houses at Mark’s Tey is a shocking betrayal of local people.
The decision to submit this proposal to the government’s New Towns’ Commission looking for sites to start building 100 new towns “before the next election” was an outrageous abuse of power. It bypassed normal democratic procedures – being neither formally approved by the cabinet nor were those of us on the local plan committee even informed of it.
The site is wholly unsuitable with the garden-community originally proposed there having been rejected by the planning inspector in 2020, partly because of totally inadequate transport links. Since then, not only do we not have the funding for the A120 scheme, but the government has just cancelled the desperately needed A12 improvements.
What is also clear is that is that this proposal did not come out of nowhere. At the 5 November meeting of the council’s local plan committee, four Labour councillors – Martyn Warnes, Dave Harris, Mike Lilley and Lee Scordis used the ‘Have your say’ section, to argue that the council should build a massive development at Mark’s Tey. In May Labour formed a coalition with the Lib-Dems to control the council. Now this is presented to a government commission as official council policy – despite never having been approved by either the cabinet or local plan committee.
However, a new town at Mark’s Tey is highly likely to be in addition to the 20,000+ new houses the Labour government have already required Colchester to build – and which we already lack adequate water, sewage and transport infrastructure for.
This is a shoddy and wholly undemocratic way to run a local council.
Our beautiful local area should not be sacrificed in this manner.
Dr Martin Parsons
Conservative Spokesman on Sustainability
And Colchester City Councillor for Mersea and Pyefleet
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