Gardiner's Lane South plan B

In 2003 Basildon District Council published a Supplementary Planning Guidance for Gardiner’s Lane South. This built on the 1992 Local Plan and designated the 90-acre open space for a large commercial and a limited housing development. So, far, so good, but despite a planning application for the site being passed in 2005, it hasn’t proved possible to design a project to actually get anything built. The sticking point has been the identified need for a bridge and junction over the adjacent A127 to take the traffic from the commercial development, which has a price tag of the order of £45m. No government cash has been forthcoming for that, and that upfront cost made a project unattractive to the private sector, despite the boom in commercial property that has only just come to a stuttering halt. What does a Council do when faced with such a situation? Well there is the option of working with the landowner, English Partnerships, an arm of the government, to somehow, some way get a development started on the original plans. That is certainly what the local Labour Party said we should do. Or, we could recognise that if we couldn’t get the development going in the most benign of markets then it certainly won’t happen during the current slowdown, and then think of something else. Because we are sensible people, we have gone with option 2, and we will be working with English Partnerships on a predominately residential alternative, which doesn’t have anything like the same heavy transport impact. That also means that there is a green field somewhere that we won’t have to concrete over to meet the government’s housing targets for Basildon District, which is also a good thing. The only real concern would be if the loss of potential employment land could damage the local economy, but we are confident that our other regeneration projects and developments like the huge London Gateway port just 7 miles down the road will provide the commercial space, and employment, that we need.

The Labour Party was still upset though, because the original proposal was largely their idea. Frankly, they shouldn’t be so defensive. No-one has torn into them about the viability of the original scheme, and anyway that is not the point. What matters is what works for our community not the egos that have been invested in glossy site maps. Housing on Gardiners Land at least has some prospect of actually being built.