Are we about to concrete

over South Essex?

When the proposed volumes of new housing are quoted in the press the numbers can appear huge. e.g. 478,000! However it is important to realise that this covers a large area (the whole of the East of England in this case) and a 20 year time period. These figures may not be significantly above those built in previous generations. In fact Essex were already planning to build 110,000 houses in the period 2001-2020 and the higher figures being requested by government only amount to 128,000 dwellings – a 16% increase. These differences are not such as to mean all the green fields will disappear.

However there are some important questions to be asked:

· Should we build only on previously used sites (called brown field, such as old industrial sites)?

· What sort of dwellings should we build?

· How densely should we build?