1,500 new homes plan in Tilbury eco-community project (From Thurrock Gazette)

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1,500 new homes plan in Tilbury eco-community project

3:14pm Monday 12th May 2008

HOUSEBUILDER Redrow Homes has unveiled plans for a major new eco-community in Tilbury that will bring multi-million pound investment to the town.

Redrow's plans, called Tilbury Future, would see the development of 1,500 new homes, new community facilities and they pledge employment opportunities that could generate hundreds of new jobs.

In is proposal Redrow says Tilbury Future would harness the latest renewable energy, water conservation, recycling and waste reduction technology, and the most advance designs for energy efficient homes to create a new green low carbon community.

Redrow says discussions have been held with Thurrock Council, Thurock Thames Gateway Development Corporation, landowners and developers and other local stakeholders about the plans.

The Tilbury Future concept plans have been prepared for over 60 hectares of land to the north of Tilbury and have been submitted to the Thurrock Thames Gateway Development Corporation as part of its masterplanning exercise for South East Thurrock.

Initial proposals were presented to Tilbury residents last year and received a warm welcome.

Over 60 per cent of residents who responded said they supported the proposals and felt that Tilbury would benefit from the investment.

Jo Hanslip, Regional Planning Director of Redrow Homes said: We believe that Tilbury Future is a really exciting opportunity for the town.

"Tilbury has suffered from years of underinvestment. Our proposals will not only bring much needed new homes and jobs to the town, but also bring in significant additional investment, particularly in retail, to revitalise Tilbury Town Centre."

Thurrock Thames Gateway Development Corporation is currently consulting on a masterplan for South East Thurrock and preferred options due to be published later this year, with a final plan agreed in early 2009.

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Sue, says...
4:51pm Mon 12 May 08

Let's hope this will re-jeuvinate Tilbury as it does not always get'good press'.

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pa, grays says...
8:48am Tue 13 May 08

So 1,500 new homes which on average will equate to a further 4,500 people moving to the area.

Presumably there will be children so we'll need new schools then. I'm assuming that some of the new people will work in the city or out of the area so we'll need extra public transport.

How many free doctors and dentist places are there in the area. Presumably we'll need more of these. What about the already congested roads.

As the government wants to move something close to a million people into the Thames Gateway, I'm assuming we'll need additional water and power resources to cope with the extra demand.

Where are all the plans for these things, or do they just happen on their own. In 5 years time the local communities of Thurrock will be gone. The area wil have no identity, it will just be another faceless place where most of the local residents of today will be long gone.

Add these 1,500 new "homes" to the plans already in place for West Thurrock and Purfleet, over 3,000 new "homes" and you don't need to be a genius to see what this area will be like.

These houses will most likely go to the ever increasing list of council and Housing association tenants in London who are standing in line waiting for their grant to go and buy a house outside of London.

Great for the new local community but what about the current one?

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Thomas Johns, Essex says...
9:17am Tue 13 May 08

Jo Hanslip, Regional Planning Director of Redrow Homes said: We believe that Tilbury Future is a really exciting opportunity for the town.
"Tilbury has suffered from years of underinvestment. Our proposals will not only bring much needed new homes and jobs to the town, but also bring in significant additional investment, particularly in retail, to revitalise Tilbury Town Centre."

didnt the 20 million quid Tilbury got a few years ago count as investment then?

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Dave Amis, says...
8:03pm Tue 13 May 08

A developer wanting to build 1500 new homes holds talks with Thurrock Council, Thurrock Thames Gateway Development Corporation (TTGDC) and various local stakeholders. These talks are backed with lots of lovely green rhetoric about sustainability and the like. As has been pointed out above, this number of new homes will have an impact on an already creaking public infrastructure in the area, yet there is no mention of how this issue is going to be addressed.

Aside from this, there is something else missing. That is any mention of how much of this new development is going to be used to meet local housing needs and shorten the waiting list for housing in Thurrock. We have met plenty of people with sons and daughters, both working but not earning enough to get even a glimmer of a chance on a mortgage assuming they can find somewhere they can afford to buy in the first place. Yet these people cannot get on the waiting list for a council home, because demand greatly exceeds supply and their need isnt deemed to be serious enough to warrant a place on the list. You dont have to be a rocket scientist to realise that this is causing considerable resentment.

Yet despite this, there has been nothing in the way of a definite commitment from the TTGDC and their developer friends that local housing needs will be catered for by any of the proposed new home building. The TTGDC and the developers should not be surprised at the level of hostility that they now face across the borough. People feel they have no ownership over the process of regeneration and that it is something that is being done to them rather than for them. Anyone seeking a case study of how not to implement a regeneration scheme need look no further than the undemocratic, unaccountable disaster that is the TTGDC for a classic example of how to completely lose the plot

Dave Amis
Thurrock IWCA

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