Last week’s headline ‘Councils at war over housing plans’ belies the fact that Conservative councillors in Harlow failed to make any representation objecting to the development of Green Belt land to the south and west of Harlow to the Planning Inspector during her examination of the Local Development Plan of Epping Forest District Council (EFDC) in 2019.

At the meeting referred to in last week’s article, Labour councillors pointed out that Harlow Council have for some years repeatedly refused to sell land or give up rights of way to the proposed development sites to the south and west of Harlow, so in reality, nothing has changed. Reaffirming past policy will have little effect in the event that Essex County Council decide to sell some key sites which would give access to new developments from housing estates in Harlow and neither will it in the event that compulsory purchase powers are used to buy land on which new roads are constructed.

EFDC has chosen to ignore the fact that the number of new households being created across the UK is in steep decline, the UK’s population increase is dramatically slowing, the effects Covid will have in the long term in respect of where people work and where they live and finally the Climate Change Report of July 2021. Their plan will see many acres of commercial greenhouse and arable land lost to property developers, just at a time we should be reducing the carbon footprint within the food production industry.

The Government has spent billions trying to mitigate the effects of Covid on the economy and one has to wonder if sufficient money will ever become available to provide new infrastructure in and around Harlow. News that the new hospital has only been allocated £400 million when over £600 million is needed may be a foretaste of what’s to come.

Nicholas Taylor

Leader, The Harlow Alliance Party