Political Viewpoint - Leigh-on-Sea

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Leigh On Sea News: Political Viewpoint – BY Mark Francois, MP for Rayleigh and Wickford.

Political Viewpoint - BY Mark Francois, MP for Rayleigh and Wickford.

Leigh On Sea News: Political Viewpoint – BY Mark Francois, MP for Rayleigh and Wickford.

Defending our green belt against Labours’ plans for “devolution”

The Metropolitan Green Belt, which covers much of the Rochford District, is a vital asset that helps preserve the character of our community. However, it is now under serious threat from the new Labour Government, for reasons I will outline below.

As an MP, I have always opposed mandatory, top-down housing targets imposed by Whitehall bureaucrats. I spent years campaigning within my own party to replace these with advisory targets — allowing local communities, especially those with significant Green Belt areas, to push back where necessary. The previous Conservative Government adopted this approach, but Labour has now reversed it, reinstating mandatory targets following the recent General Election.

We are once again at the mercy of the “Whitehall knows best” mentality. Even worse, Labour is now using computer algorithms to dictate how many housing units each area must absorb, regardless of existing infrastructure pressures. As a result, Rochford’s annual housing target has been dramatically increased from 356 to 675 units per year—equivalent to building a large new development, like High Elms Park in Hullbridge, every year for the next two decades.

Of course, we need to build new homes — young people cannot be expected to live with their parents forever — but development must be environmentally sustainable, well-placed, and supported by the necessary infrastructure from the outset, not as an afterthought.

The A127 and A13, our District’s main east-west road links, are already operating at 98–99% capacity during peak hours. Southend Hospital is struggling to cope, GP surgeries are overstretched, and schools — especially those catering for special educational needs — are under increasing pressure. Simply piling more houses into our district without substantial infrastructure investment is reckless.

Rochford District Council’s long-overdue Local Plan should address these issues, setting out where development will take place and what infrastructure is required to support it.

However, despite leading the council for nearly two years, the Lib Dem administration has yet to produce a plan and is unlikely to do so before this summer at the earliest. It will then take at least two more years to bring it into force. The longer they delay, the more vulnerable our District becomes to speculative planning applications from major developers.

Labour’s so-called “Devolution” plans will only make matters worse. Their proposal is to replace Essex County Council and its districts with a new two-tier system — a Combined Authority led by a “Mayor of Essex,” alongside several enlarged unitary councils. This costly and disruptive restructure could take an entire parliamentary term to implement, with no guarantee of improved services for council tax payers.

More importantly, it would strip local communities of their say over development. If Rochford were forcibly merged with Southend and Castle Point under a Labour-dictated “shotgun marriage,” our Local Plan would be replaced by a new Unitary Plan covering a much larger area. With Labour’s high housing targets and a new unitary authority headquartered in urban Southend, where do you think most of the new homes would be allocated? Rochford’s Green Belt would become a prime target for large-scale development, and our local councillors would be powerless to resist, outnumbered by representatives from more densely populated areas.

To make matters worse, the new Essex Mayor would be required to draft a countywide “spatial strategy,” adding yet another layer of bureaucracy that could impose even more housing on Green Belt land.

This is the much the same system used by Sadiq Khan in London — and Labour’s Devolution White Paper, published last December, openly praises it. The last thing Essex needs is another Sadiq Khan-style planning regime.

Labour is trying to rush this through at breakneck speed. Councils must submit initial Devolution proposals — including which areas will merge — by 21 March, just weeks from now, with final plans due by September 2025.

Worse still, Labour wants to cancel this year’s local elections — something I completely oppose. This is not just about Labour’s plummeting poll numbers; they are deliberately preventing local people from voting against these plans. It’s a stitch-up from start to finish. That is why I have twice called for a countywide referendum on Devolution before it is allowed to proceed any further.

To their credit, the Conservative Group on Rochford District Council — supported by the Rochford District Residents Group — recently passed a motion opposing Labour’s Devolution plans. I fully support them in this fight, as the future of our district and its Green Belt is now at stake. There will likely be a public consultation on Devolution this spring, and since Labour has scrapped our local elections, I urge residents to make their voices heard through the consultation instead.

In summary, I am firmly opposed to Labour’s top-down plans to concrete over our Green Belt. Decisions about housing numbers and infrastructure should be made by locally elected representatives who understand their communities, not by remote civil servants and computer algorithms.

There is such a thing as good development, but it must be done with local people, not to them. Labour’s plans are the complete opposite.

Similarly, I oppose their Devolution proposals, which are little more than a Trojan Horse to weaken local control over major planning decisions. As the saying goes: “Not in my name!”

When the consultation on Devolution in Essex begins, I urge as many residents as possible to respond — and, like me and Rochford District Council, to oppose Labour’s plans.

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