It is enough that such under-occupation is a missed opportunity in the face of the acute housing crisis in the south east, as evinced locally by rising house prices and the pressure put on Essex boroughs to shoulder a share of the capital’s housing demand, according to a Chelmsford City Council (CCC) senior planner. Further to this general pressure SWF is currently subject of controversial proposals for a significant expansion. As part of the CCC Local Plan (fig. 1.7-1.8), at the time of writing in the final stages of consultation, a new housing location of minimum 1,000 new homes is proposed: Site Location 7, to the north of the Burnham Road B1012, north of the existing town (fig. 1.9). This is the first significant development the town has seen in the almost 30 years since the ECC expansion. Naturally such proposals have caused significant fuss within the town, including the formation of the highly vocal anti-development campaign group South Woodham Action Group, or SWAG. Beyond the inevitable NIMBYist drama resulting from any new housing proposals in such comfortable, relatively well-off suburban environments, many of the criticisms raised by residents towards the new development have credence. Residents believe the development sites, located on the steep incline of Radar Hill and looming over the town, fail the selection criteria proposed by CCC themselves. Furthermore, it is felt that the new homes will not be affordable to locals, despite placations from CCC that similar developments nearby - such as Beaulieu Park - have majoritively been bought up by locals. Many residents interviewed expressed upset that their children were unable to purchase in the town and were therefore forced to move elsewhere (Frankland, 2018; Brunning, 2018; Dempsey, 2018). There is little hope that 1000 new homes will notably impact this trend as a reduction in house prices would damage profit margins. SWF is the second largest settlement in the borough (fig. 1.10), as emphasised by CCC senior planning officer Jeremy Potter, and thus has a role to play in providing the new homes that this area, within easy commuting distance to London, so desperately requires. There is hope: responses at Visioning Events held for the Neighbourhood Plan highlight a level of enthusiasm within the town for building more homes, with messages such as ‘Build homes here!’ added to the maps (fig. 1.11), a sentiment mirrored by the somewhat tongue-incheek YIMBY campaign the ‘Peoples’ Front of Woodham Ferrers’.
1.1 fig. 1.10 Location of South Woodham Ferrers in Chelmsford City Council area
fig. 1.11 Messages of support for new homes, at a Neighbourhood Plan Visioning event
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