Rayne Parish Council in village of Rayne, Essex, UK

As far as BDC are concerned the Boxted Wood Development is against the Braintree Core Strategy , and has not been included as a consideration. The proposed developer of Boxted Wood. believes that BDC's proposals are in the wrong places and has lodged an appeal, this will be considered by the Inspector in April 2011, and his decision will decide if B.D.C. are right, this is expected in July.

However, local views are strongly against, including B.D.C. ( full council vote) and local Parishes. Braintree Planning Department is not supporting this development as it is not considered to benefit the economy of the District, and the infrastructure is not present.

Out of the whole proposal, Braintree has approx. a third of the development, about 1100 homes, which would not be in, or near a preferred future site in our Core Strategy.

We understand that Uttesford D.C. are now reviewing their future growth requirements, following the Regional Strategy changes, and have not yet decided on future developments.

The Uttlesford Core Strategy document has been published and has some implications that may affect Rayne.

Consultation runs from Monday 15th February to Friday 9th April.
Uttlesford District Council have published a consultation concerning the provision of
housing in the District. A copy of this consultation has been sent to residents in
Uttlesford but as our village is within Braintree District Council we are not being sent
copies. We believe all residents should know about the proposals and have the
opportunity of making their view known. The consultation is known as “CORE
STRATEGY CONSULTATION”.

The document consults Uttlesford residents on the proposed sites for 4,000 new
houses. The Uttlesford District Council’s (UDC) preferred option is to place 3,000 of
these houses on one site. Two of the six sites included in the consultation are on the
Stebbing/Saling border adjacent to Stebbing Green.
This will obviously affect Rayne considerably .

There are seven questions in the Consultation document.
We strongly urge you to respond to this consultation
since the strength of feeling in the village needs to be communicated to UDC.

Obviously residents in all the other affected villages will also be encouraged by their
Parish Councils to make their representations known. Nobody wants this housing on
their doorstep but most of this housing is going to be built on green fields.

The real threat if UDC’s preferred Option 4 is selected, is that
in the event of the Elsenham site (3000 houses) not being chosen then the focus for
the 3000 houses site could well turn to Stebbing/Saling, i.e. Boxted Wood/
Andrewsfield.

This would be in spite of our many reasons as to why these sites are clearly unsustainable and
unsuitable for such development. Therefore we strongly urge everyone to respond to
this consultation.

The consultation is available on the UDC website www.uttlesford.gov.uk/corestrategy
There is a copy of the consultation in The White Hart, Great Saling and the Landlord has
kindly agreed that it will be available to read during opening hours.

More info.

Braintree Council have recently released their "Alternative Growth Locations" document which lists their preferred options on development in the area. Of concern to residents in Rayne is the proposed "Flitch Way Settlement" which came about due to Braintree Football Club's desire to build an new stadium in the area and has been classified thus by BDC.....

"That the Flitch way Settlement Proposal should be retained for further consideration as a potential growth location, if the SHLAA identifies a shortfall of sites with housing potential"

If it goes ahead this will be a huge development of some 36ha area on a Greenfield site behind Gilda Terrace and almost up to the very borders of Rayne.

The document also states that BDC are opposed to the development of Boxted Wood and Andrewsfield Airfield, however only part of this development lays within BDC's area, the majority of land, falls within Uttlesford District and while they also seem to be opposed to development of this site by having Elsenham as their "preferred option" for major development, it is likely that if problems arise from the building of Elsenham then eyes may again look toward Boxted Wood and Andrewsfield. At Present Galliard homes are looking to build 4500 houses on the Boxted Wood site. As their plans also include healthcare, shops, education and industry then this development is going to be more like a new town with the commercial properties in addition to 4500 homes. The whole Boxted Wood/ Andrewsfield site could be covered with up to 40,000 houses.

To make it easier to find we have included the SHLAA document from Braintree District Council on this site and it can be found Here

There are numerous documents from Uttlesford but the main one of interest for residents of Rayne, Uttlesford SHLAA, can be found Here

This last document is part of Uttlesford District "Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment".
This has yet to go out for public consultation but when it does residents of Rayne are free to make comment as they wish.

Both of the threats mentioned above will have a massive impact on the village of Rayne if they go ahead. Please keep a watch on this website for further information.
In addition a new website is being launched named "Save Boxted Wood" which can be accessed under "Other Links" on the left of this page.