Those of us living in the villages west of Colchester will be watching nervously across the boundary with Braintree at the current onslaught of speculative development led by Gladman, which specialises in exploiting the planning system where local authorities have failed to get a Local Plan in place.

Halstead, Earls Colne and now Bures are in the front line.

Braintree, Colchester and Tendring councils should be castigated for allowing themselves to get blinded by an unobtainable long-term dream of garden communities while in the meantime handing the Local Plan-making role to the likes of Gladman.

No doubt some of the edge of village sites could well be acceptable but this is the wrong way to plan for local communities.

The sites should be identified in meaningful consultation with locals and properly co-ordinated to ensure locations make best use of existing infrastructure or contribute to identified shortfalls.

The councils should be focusing on meeting the required five-year supply of housing land as a matter of urgency, allocating a range of sites that meet a clear set of sustainable criteria with contributions to social and physical infrastructure.

If necessary by adopting policies or supplementary planning guidance now that allocate sites in advance of Local Plan, as Braintree did a few years ago in order to spike the guns of the speculators.

Who remembers the promise of former Colchester Coucil leader Paul Smith that garden communities would protect the villages from unwanted development?

The councils have brought the “Gladman attack” on themselves and it is no use blaming the Government who have made it very clear what is expected from local planning authorities.

Councillors are still being urged to delay the Local Plan in a bid to keep the forlorn hope of the garden communities alive.

Forget the pipedreams and concentrate on getting a Local Plan in place that meets the needs of North Essex now, not in 50 years’ time.

Mike Lambert

Aldham