Dear Sirs,
On January 30th of this year at Colchester’s football stadium the local plan inspector wrapped up his second public examination of the North Essex Authorities’ (NEA) proposed local plan. It is a certainty that the word “pandemic” did not appear on a single page of the many thousands of pages of evidence submitted by the many diverse interests represented. At that time a reasonable expectation was that the inspector would publish his report around the late April/early May timeframe.
Today, in just 3 short months, the world is a very different place with no prospect of improvement any time soon and we still await the inspector’s report.
Had things gone to plan for the authorities, by now the inspector would have found the NEA’s local plan “sound” and arrangements would be being made to transfer the funds needed to the NEA’s Garden Community development vehicle NEGC Ltd, an estimated £20M over the next 1 to 2 years.
Instead, like every other local authority in the country, the NEAs are facing a once in a lifetime financial emergency of unprecedented proportions. The Government have set up a bailout fund of some £3.2B but it is universally acknowledged that this is not going to be nearly enough.
With empty carparks, much lower councils tax receipts due to rocketing unemployment, reduced business rates income and the prospect of a much reduced housebuilding programme whilst at the same time incurring increased expense in caring for vulnerable groups, local authorities are in for a torrid time. In short, spending is going to become extremely tight with money being directed at the most deserving and critical cases.
So what are the prospects for NEGC during the financial maelstrom that is about to hit us all? Is the Garden Communities a project the NEAs can no longer afford? At the very least it will have to be put off probably for several years or at least until such time as some reasonably reliable assessment of the post pandemic marketplace can be made.
In the meantime what does the NEGC do? Its sole purpose in life is to progress a project that now seems to be receding at pace into the future. Are the NEAs seriously going to grant funding to such a speculative venture given the current climate? Indeed, will the NEA alliance even survive the ravages that are set to be visited upon its members or will it break up as each authority hunkers down to fight its own battles? We have already seen Colchester BC withhold funding and that was even before the pandemic struck.
Surely, the Garden Communities project must now be shelved and left for another day. This project with its peak borrowing requirement of half a billion pounds is starkly incompatible with the NEA’s more immediate and pressing responsibilities which will no doubt occupy them for several years to come. Pressing forward at this time will send out extremely insensitive messages at a time of dire need on the part of so many north Essex people.
The unavoidable truth is that the NEGC will be serving no useful purpose for the foreseeable future but would nevertheless consume considerable increasingly scarce resources if allowed to remain in place. There will be no value to be had for the hard pressed council taxpayer. Surely it must be wound up forthwith and such funding as might have been directed to it retained for far more pressing purposes.
Clive Waite
Foxearth
Essex