THURROCK is being overburdened with the number of new homes it has to build, councillors fear.
Thurrock’s local plan currently identifies a need for 32,000 homes by 2038.
The borough has only met 59 per cent of the overall Government target for the area. A total of 3,088 houses needed to be constructed between 2017 and 2020, but only 1,823 were actually built.
At a meeting of the Housing Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday, chairman Lynn Worrall said: “The census result shows an extra 35,000 people than we had ten years ago. That will mean they’ll need houses but we haven’t got any more extra land to build all these extra houses on so will be giving up more of our green belt I guess.
“We are just about to shut our hospital down so I’m just really cautious about the amount of uplifts that are going to get levied on us because of economic growth. We already know that we have got the theme park. Where are all these workers going to be. We’ve got the crossing, where are all those construction workers going to live. That’s on top of that we’ve already got. It really does worry me that and they will always be able to make a reason for giving us more and more houses.”
Councillor Worrall also criticised the selling off of plots of land which she said the council could have built homes on.
She said: “I’m just flabbergasted that we find that we are selling off pieces of land that are ready for development and I just think who is making these decisions?
We’ve got to build one bedroom, two bedroom four bedroom homes. We know we can do a good job but we just sell up a prime piece of land for next to nothing and it just makes me really angry. It just doesn’t smell right. I’m not saying anyone has done anything wrong but it just doesn’t sit right.
“Lets get on and build houses and look for sites.”
Mike Fletcher, Labour councillor for Belhus, said infrastructure needed to be considered before new homes were built. He said: “we cannot consider housing in a bubble on its own. Where we build, how we build, has to consider the availability of school places the availability of doctors dental surgeries the roads in and out.
“I really would like to see evidence that these plans, these proposals are being put together with full consideration of what they will do, the strains they will put on the infrastructure and how you would address those strains.”
Joy Redsell Conservative councillor for Little Thurrock Blackshots, said the council had proved it could get developments right.
She said: “The 53 houses we did in Chadwell I’ve got to say it is beautiful. I went round there and had a proper look and it is absolutely lovely. If we do more things like that in Thurrock then we are doing well because that is really, really good”.
