Tendring Colchester Borders Garden Community Development Plan Document (DPD)

The CLG contends that
a) The £21 million ring-fenced for the RTS should be instead put towards completing the link road FIRST, so that it is in place before the first houses are built and
b) the route for the RTS should be drastically changed to a route which does not utilise the A133 Clingoe Hill, already hugely congested, or go through an equally hugely congested central Colchester necessitating millions to widen roads and introduce bus lanes. Instead it should be redrawn to use the route suggested by the CLG and shown in the attached file labelled Alt_RTS_Route. This is already in part dedicated bus routes and will all , once the link road is constructed, be fit for use for a modern RTS system. That suggested route is shown in the attached file. It avoids Clingoe Hill in favour of already dedicated bus routes through Elmstead Road, Capon Road and Boundary Road (used by First Buses, routes S1 and 87), links all the key destinations required including the Northern Gateway and Garden Community Park and Choose, the hospital and North Station, together with a stop at the top of Balkerne Hill to access central Colchester, and the University and Knowledge Gateway. It would operate in a loop in an anti-clockwise direction, utilising roads which are already fit for use for a modern RTS system, thus saving millions of pounds. It would be in place as soon as the link road is constructed in full linking the A133 and the A120, ready for the new residents to adapt to new patterns of travel behaviour without the car, achieving modal shift, because all key destinations as listed above are quick, frequent and accessible via the RTS.

The key stops that the new route would link are as follows, starting from the Park and Choose at the bottom edge of the TCB Garden Community on the A133:
- The Garden Community stops (initially the first (southernmost) developed community)
- The A120 employment park, top right of the Garden Community (providing fast transport to work for Garden Community residents who are employed there)
- Severalls Lane and Colchester Business Park, also an employment hub. Shown on the map as being accessed via the Ipswich Road and Severalls Lane, Colchester Business Park does have a route into and through the Business Park from the A120/A12 junction, which may be preferable and give a smoother curve on the route.
- The Stadium
- Colchester Sports and Leisure Park
- Northern Gateway Park and Ride
- Colchester General Hospital
- Colchester North Station
- Top of Balkerne Hill stop for the town centre (by the old Embassy Suite)
- St Botolphs train station
- Bottom of Hythe Hill (for walking access to Hythe station just over the bridge over the river Colne)
- Start of Elmstead Road (for access to Tesco The Hythe)
- End of Capon Road, on Boundary Road, for access to Essex University's Innovation Centre, Essex Business School and the Knowledge Gateway Science and Business Park
- Back to the start of the loop at the Park and Choose on the junction of the A133.

The link to this Google map is shown below. It allows the user to zoom in, move the map around and view in different ways just as you can with a regular Google map. https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1jDmOLSmGRF5PHD61n7TSBD5HlZiP__0&usp=sharing

Benefits of this recommended revised approach
The benefits completing the link road in its entirety BEFORE commencement of homes being built together with an RTS that utilises the anti-clockwise route shown are as follows:

1) Using the route proposed, no building work for extra bus lanes etc needs to be done on Clingoe Hill, in either direction, thus avoiding the horrendous congestion that would result therefrom.
2) No expensive road alterations need to be made through central and historic Colchester. The new route would skirt the town centre, with a key stop at the top of Balkerne Hill by the Embassy Rooms to access the centre, and then again at St Botolphs train station.
3) This could potentially pave the way for central Colchester to be pedestrianised or remain as it is, being served by local bus routes.
4) The proposed alternative to Clingoe Hill (Elmstead Road, Capon Road, Boundary Road, B1028/27 back to A133) is already a dedicated bus route (First Buses Routes S1 and 87)
5) Much of the route is already in place and fit for purpose for an RTS (A120, Severalls Lane, Axial Way, Via Urbis, plus Elmstead Road avoiding Clingoe Hill above) thus presenting a huge cost saving.
6) The saved cost of works on Clingoe Hill alone would contribute a large proportion of the monies needed for the completion of the link road.
7) The completed link road would immediately begin to relieve pressure on Clingoe Hill by providing a through route for traffic going to North Station or the hospital or the A12.
8) Because of the immediate fast access via the RTS anticlockwise route to North Station or the A120 employment park in the north west corner of the Garden Community or even Colchester Business Park, or Colchester General Hospital, new Garden Community residents working in London or any of the other locations would very easily adopt this modal shift from the outset. If there is a wait of 5-16 years for the link road to be completed this opportunity will have been lost. Much of the soundness of the TCBGC derives from its having the link road and not having to be dependent upon routes into Colchester, either for employment, schools, hospital care, shopping or travel.
9) It would meet the previous inspection’s criterion for soundness as the link road would be doing as it was intended in siphoning traffic with onward destinations beyond Clingoe Hill off from the A133 and onto the A120 or beyond.
9) The Park and Choose on the Garden Community with the new RTS anti-clockwise route to access these destinations then also becomes a very real possibility from the outset.
10) Already it is painfully difficult to get a parking space in the hospital car park because it is so overloaded and people often have to drive around waiting for someone to leave before they can park. This will only be exacerbated with a larger demographic. However, with a fast RTS system adopting the proposed anti-clockwise route, residents from all communities east of Colchester can use the Park and Choose on the Garden Community to not only avoid battling with the traffic on A133 Clingoe Hill and beyond but avoid driving to the hospital at all using the RTS with the looping anti-clockwise route proposed by the CLG.

Recommendation
Very much of the strength and soundness of the TCBGC project relies on its provision of self sustainability ie for schools, healthcare, employment and shopping without having to travel outside of the Garden Community either to put added pressure on road infrastructure, or services found in surrounding communities. The RTS route plan shown in the current DPD, based on a link road that does not link, is in direct contradiction of this. As the point of the link road is to reduce traffic going into Colchester and a central tenet of the Garden Community is to be self-contained, why are huge sums being spent to provide an RTS to increase this traffic and access services outside the Garden Community? And this is at the expense of the mitigating link road, and using the very route whose traffic the link road was intended to alleviate. This is also in direct contravention of the key principles of the Garden Community and one of the chief causes of controversy, concern and dismay, expressed from the outset, in local communities.

We would contend that the TCBGC Transport Evidence Base Part 2 Measures report commissioned by the Councils and provided by Ringway Jacobs is far too narrow and limited in its outlook and with its RTS proposals and routing is merely providing a very expensive sticking plaster which will not meet demands even 10 years into the future, as the report itself admits: p5 ‘The RTS HIF project is introducing priority measures on the approach to Greenstead roundabout which is expected to operate satisfactorily up to 2033 for RTS vehicles’ but ‘In the potential second phase of investment post 2033, it would be expected that the garden community would be continuing to grow but a general increase in car trips could be threatening RTS reliability and worsening RTS journey times on the route west of Greenstead roundabout, which would work against achieving mode share targets and sustainable travel aims.’

Recommended movement and travel routes must therefore adopt a much broader future-proofed approach to accommodate the transport needs of an additional 17,500 people (2.3 persons living in each of 7,500 homes) on the east of Colchester. This is represented by the proposal outlined here by the CLG in putting the unnecessary sticking plaster monies described above towards completion of the link road as originally intended by the Housing Infrastructure Fund, together with the wider circular and much more economical RTS revised route, shown in the attached file, which will accommodate a thriving community 50 years into the future and beyond, without impinging on or increasing congestion of surrounding road and central Colchester infrastructure. To do anything else is to render the whole of the good work done by the planners in other areas such as Land Uses and Spatial Approach, and the aspirations embodied in both the Section 1 Local Plan and other TCBGC policies hamstrung at best by this crippling and at best wholly inadequate approach.

Note: It is also of some concern that the plan currently proposed is based on a report (TCBGC Transport Evidence Base Part 2 Measures) by an organisation (Jacobs part of Ringway Jacobs, who describe themselves thus: 'We design, create and maintain world-class, safe, efficient and environment-friendly highway infrastructure for local authorities') which may stand directly to gain commercially and financially from these very expensive and by their own admission inadequate and time-limited plans. It is also of concern that the proposal actually in real terms detracts from the soundness of and benefit to the TCBGC, by utilising funds which should go towards the full completion of the link road, as well as actually exacerbating harm to surrounding communities.

The CLG assert therefore that it is absolutely vital NOT to delay the completion of the link road – it was deemed to be fundamental to the soundness of the TCB Garden Community by the last inspection and on it hang very many of the Garden Community’s goals and aspirations. To leave it undone is to strike at the very heart of the soundness of the project. We would therefore urge the Inspector to include our proposals – to complete the link road from the outset and to re-route the RTS – as main modifications in their inspection report to transform the DPD from what is otherwise an extremely unsound plan which may even see the vision of the TCBGC dashed entirely, to one that is sound, pragmatic and meets all of its aspirations.

It is the urgent belief and conviction of the TCBGC Community Liaison Group (CLG) that a radically different timeplan and approach should be taken with regard to the key components of this policy, namely the A120/A120 link road and the RTS (Rapid Transit System), in order to successfully achieve the policy’s goals and aims as laid out in the DPD. Without these drastic alterations, outlined below, we do not believe the plan is sound, and worse, that it is in direct contravention of the principles underlying the HIF grant of 99.9M as a result of which at the previous inspection the TCB Garden Community was adjudged as being sound.

The current plan has allocated £21 million to the provision of an RTS which means that there is a shortfall of £21 million to complete the link road. It is the CLG’s contention that

a) The £21 million ring-fenced for the RTS should be instead put towards completing the link road FIRST, so that it is in place before the first houses are built and
b) the route for the RTS should be drastically changed to a route which does not utilise the A133 Clingoe Hill, already hugely congested, or go through an equally hugely congested central Colchester necessitating millions to widen roads and introduce bus lanes. Instead it should be redrawn to use the route suggested by the CLG and shown in the attached file labelled Alt_RTS_Route. This is already in part dedicated bus routes and will all , once the link road is constructed, be fit for use for a modern RTS system. That suggested route is shown in the attached file. It avoids Clingoe Hill in favour of already dedicated bus routes through Elmstead Road, Capon Road and Boundary Road (used by First Buses, routes S1 and 87), links all the key destinations required including the Northern Gateway and Garden Community Park and Choose, the hospital and North Station, together with a stop at the top of Balkerne Hill to access central Colchester, and the University and Knowledge Gateway. It would operate in a loop in an anti-clockwise direction, utilising roads which are already fit for use for a modern RTS system, thus saving millions of pounds. It would be in place as soon as the link road is constructed in full linking the A133 and the A120, ready for the new residents to adapt to new patterns of travel behaviour without the car, achieving modal shift, because all key destinations as listed above are quick, frequent and accessible via the RTS.

The key stops that the new route would link are as follows, starting from the Park and Choose at the bottom edge of the TCB Garden Community on the A133:
- The Garden Community stops (initially the first (southernmost) developed community)
- The A120 employment park, top right of the Garden Community (providing fast transport to work for Garden Community residents who are employed there)
- Severalls Lane and Colchester Business Park, also an employment hub. Shown on the map as being accessed via the Ipswich Road and Severalls Lane, Colchester Business Park does have a route into and through the Business Park from the A120/A12 junction, which may be preferable and give a smoother curve on the route.
- The Stadium
- Colchester Sports and Leisure Park
- Northern Gateway Park and Ride
- Colchester General Hospital
- Colchester North Station
- Top of Balkerne Hill stop for the town centre (by the old Embassy Suite)
- St Botolphs train station
- Bottom of Hythe Hill (for walking access to Hythe station just over the bridge over the river Colne)
- Start of Elmstead Road (for access to Tesco The Hythe)
- End of Capon Road, on Boundary Road, for access to Essex University's Innovation Centre, Essex Business School and the Knowledge Gateway Science and Business Park
- Back to the start of the loop at the Park and Choose on the junction of the A133.

The link to this Google map is shown below. It allows the user to zoom in, move the map around and view in different ways just as you can with a regular Google map. https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1jDmOLSmGRF5PHD61n7TSBD5HlZiP__0&usp=sharing

Benefits of this recommended revised approach
The benefits completing the link road in its entirety BEFORE commencement of homes being built together with an RTS that utilises the anti-clockwise route shown are as follows:

1) Using the route proposed, no building work for extra bus lanes etc needs to be done on Clingoe Hill, in either direction, thus avoiding the horrendous congestion that would result therefrom.
2) No expensive road alterations need to be made through central and historic Colchester. The new route would skirt the town centre, with a key stop at the top of Balkerne Hill by the Embassy Rooms to access the centre, and then again at St Botolphs train station.
3) This could potentially pave the way for central Colchester to be pedestrianised or remain as it is, being served by local bus routes.
4) The proposed alternative to Clingoe Hill (Elmstead Road, Capon Road, Boundary Road, B1028/27 back to A133) is already a dedicated bus route (First Buses Routes S1 and 87)
5) Much of the route is already in place and fit for purpose for an RTS (A120, Severalls Lane, Axial Way, Via Urbis, plus Elmstead Road avoiding Clingoe Hill above) thus presenting a huge cost saving.
6) The saved cost of works on Clingoe Hill alone would contribute a large proportion of the monies needed for the completion of the link road.
7) The completed link road would immediately begin to relieve pressure on Clingoe Hill by providing a through route for traffic going to North Station or the hospital or the A12.
8) Because of the immediate fast access via the RTS anticlockwise route to North Station or the A120 employment park in the north west corner of the Garden Community or even Colchester Business Park, or Colchester General Hospital, new Garden Community residents working in London or any of the other locations would very easily adopt this modal shift from the outset. If there is a wait of 5-16 years for the link road to be completed this opportunity will have been lost. Much of the soundness of the TCBGC derives from its having the link road and not having to be dependent upon routes into Colchester, either for employment, schools, hospital care, shopping or travel.
9) It would meet the previous inspection’s criterion for soundness as the link road would be doing as it was intended in siphoning traffic with onward destinations beyond Clingoe Hill off from the A133 and onto the A120 or beyond.
9) The Park and Choose on the Garden Community with the new RTS anti-clockwise route to access these destinations then also becomes a very real possibility from the outset.
10) Already it is painfully difficult to get a parking space in the hospital car park because it is so overloaded and people often have to drive around waiting for someone to leave before they can park. This will only be exacerbated with a larger demographic. However, with a fast RTS system adopting the proposed anti-clockwise route, residents from all communities east of Colchester can use the Park and Choose on the Garden Community to not only avoid battling with the traffic on A133 Clingoe Hill and beyond but avoid driving to the hospital at all using the RTS with the looping anti-clockwise route proposed by the CLG.

Harm arising from the current approach
The current plan, to proceed with building houses with only three quarters of the link road complete and no specified date for its completion, if ever, together with the currently planned disastrous and hugely expensive RTS route down the A133 Clingoe Hill, will

a) ensure that the modal shift will fail because
b) the RTS will be unable to provide travel to key destinations rapidly such as the hospital and the main train station as limited to A133 routes into central Colchester and
c) by the time the link road is completed, in 5-14 years time, with the possibilities of a better looped anti-clockwise RTS route that that would have provided, the patterns of behaviour not supporting modal shift will already be in place.
d) It is in direction contravention of a key principle of the TCBGC which states that it will contain all the infrastructure and services for residents WITHOUT having to go into central Colchester
e) Congestion and traffic on the A133 and Clingoe Hill going into Colchester, already gridlocked at key times, will expand exponentially with both building bus lanes and the addition of RTS priority vehicles, together with the added traffic from the Garden Community who want to go to the A12, the hospital or North Station.
f) The addition of dedicated bus lanes to Clingoe Hill will narrow it and creating a further bottleneck, more congestion and tailbacks as more traffic attempts to squeeze through a single lane as opposed to the current dual carriageway provision which already has these problems.
g) It will cause even further distress to local communities and confirm all the fears and objections they have raised about the building of the Garden Community. The CLG proposal however would do the reverse in providing an RTS route that did not use Clingoe Hill, and a joined up link road that alleviated traffic on the A133 rather than exacerbated it.
h) The £21 million currently ring-fenced for this not fit for purpose RTS, which militates against all of the principles and aspirational and otherwise entirely achievable goals of the Garden Community, will ultimately be wasted, as well as sabotaging those goals, with the loss of £21 million, as the desired modal shift will not be achieved either in the Garden Community or in Colchester City Centre, and a wonderful opportunity to achieve both of these will have been lost.
i) With only one way in or out of the Garden Community, and the route to Bromley Road as a potential exit blocked from onward travel, the incomplete link road accessing or egressing the Garden Community from or onto the A133 will act as a bottleneck, inevitably causing huge congestion problems on the estate at key times of day, a phenomenon seen already on the Turner Rise Retail Park which was equally built within only one entry / exit road, but at least does not contain hundreds / thousands of homes. This will have the effect of making the Garden Community less desirable as a location to buy houses in, with the potential buyers and existing residents feeling that they are ‘trapped’ on the development once there, with the knock-on effect that the monies to fund any later completion of the link road become increasingly remote.

Conclusion
Very much of the strength and soundness of the TCBGC project relies on its provision of self sustainability ie for schools, healthcare, employment and shopping without having to travel outside of the Garden Community either to put added pressure on road infrastructure, or services found in surrounding communities. The RTS route plan shown in the current DPD, based on a link road that does not link, is in direct contradiction of this. As the point of the link road is to reduce traffic going into Colchester and a central tenet of the Garden Community is to be self-contained, why are huge sums being spent to provide an RTS to increase this traffic and access services outside the Garden Community? And this is at the expense of the mitigating link road, and using the very route whose traffic the link road was intended to alleviate. This is also in direct contravention of the key principles of the Garden Community and one of the chief causes of controversy, concern and dismay, expressed from the outset, in local communities.

We would contend that the TCBGC Transport Evidence Base Part 2 Measures report commissioned by the Councils and provided by Ringway Jacobs is far too narrow and limited in its outlook and with its RTS proposals and routing is merely providing a very expensive sticking plaster which will not meet demands even 10 years into the future, as the report itself admits: p5 ‘The RTS HIF project is introducing priority measures on the approach to Greenstead roundabout which is expected to operate satisfactorily up to 2033 for RTS vehicles’ but ‘In the potential second phase of investment post 2033, it would be expected that the garden community would be continuing to grow but a general increase in car trips could be threatening RTS reliability and worsening RTS journey times on the route west of Greenstead roundabout, which would work against achieving mode share targets and sustainable travel aims.’

Recommended movement and travel routes must therefore adopt a much broader future-proofed approach to accommodate the transport needs of an additional 17,500 people (2.3 persons living in each of 7,500 homes) on the east of Colchester. This is represented by the proposal outlined here by the CLG in putting the unnecessary sticking plaster monies described above towards completion of the link road as originally intended by the Housing Infrastructure Fund, together with the wider circular and much more economical RTS revised route, shown in the attached file, which will accommodate a thriving community 50 years into the future and beyond, without impinging on or increasing congestion of surrounding road and central Colchester infrastructure. To do anything else is to render the whole of the good work done by the planners in other areas such as Land Uses and Spatial Approach, and the aspirations embodied in both the Section 1 Local Plan and other TCBGC policies hamstrung at best by this crippling and at best wholly inadequate approach.

Note: It is also of some concern that the plan currently proposed is based on a report (TCBGC Transport Evidence Base Part 2 Measures) by an organisation (Jacobs part of Ringway Jacobs, who describe themselves thus: 'We design, create and maintain world-class, safe, efficient and environment-friendly highway infrastructure for local authorities') which may stand directly to gain commercially and financially from these very expensive and by their own admission inadequate and time-limited plans. It is also of concern that the proposal actually in real terms detracts from the soundness of and benefit to the TCBGC, by utilising funds which should go towards the full completion of the link road, as well as actually exacerbating harm to surrounding communities.

The CLG assert therefore that it is absolutely vital NOT to delay the completion of the link road – it was deemed to be fundamental to the soundness of the TCB Garden Community by the last inspection and on it hang very many of the Garden Community’s goals and aspirations. To leave it undone is to strike at the very heart of the soundness of the project. We would therefore urge the Inspector to include our proposals – to complete the link road from the outset and to re-route the RTS – as main modifications in their inspection report to transform the DPD from what is otherwise an extremely unsound plan which may even see the vision of the TCBGC dashed entirely, to one that is sound, pragmatic and meets all of its aspirations.

Addendum
We also include another Google map showing the RTS route we propose with the completed link road extended to include the local communities of Wivenhoe and Elmstead Market, shown in the attached file labelled Alt_RTS_Route_inc_Wivenhoe+Elmstead. The link to this Google map is shown below. As before, it allows the user to zoom in, move the map around and view in different ways just as you can with a regular Google map:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1l_2-lZXvKwFsP70t6eIlW-1Hk6ktVzk&usp=sharing

The benefits from this extension to include neighbouring communities are as follows:

1) The extended route would provide value and convenience to Wivenhoe and Elmstead as a spinoff of the Garden Community, helping to ameliorate public opinion
2) It would as well help to fund the service whilst the Garden Community population density is still low and usage alone will not do so.
3) It would also extend the modal shift desired for the Garden Community into neighbouring communities, whilst giving them much needed extra services.

Note: The only additional cost to this route would be the provision of traffic signals at the end of School Road in Elmstead Market where currently there are none with the result that traffic on School Road waiting to turn left onto the A133 heading down towards the Garden Community has to wait until a convenient gap in the traffic coming from Clacton to be able to do so.

The CLG are in support of almost all of this policy with the exception of that referring to the RTS route and, by extension, an incomplete link road. We have worked extensively with the planners and the communities we live in and represent from east Colchester, Wivenhoe, Crockleford Heath and Elmstead Market to agree the key elements of the Land Use Parameters and Policies Map submitted in this DPD, apart from that relating to the RTS, which was not part of the Reg 18 consultation and based on a report that was only made available on 10 February 2023.

We support the following:
Part B: The Garden Community Neighbourhoods including the ‘special character’ designation of the Crockleford Heath neighbourhood with its own design codes portecting ‘its heritage assets and their settings, its distinctive network of green lanes, small fields and land parcels’, is supported strongly by the CLG together with the concept of 20 minute neighbourhoods to support less dependence on the car, and with walkable hubs in each neighbourhood centre including shops, primary school, healthcare and community facilities. We believe that building in neighbourhoods will inculcate a sense of community in each of these centres and combat many of the ills, both physical and mental, of living in large anonymous developments without a community centre or identity. The CLG believes it is important to develop one neighbourhood at a time, for example, the southern neighbourhood closest to the A133, to focus on its development as an integrated whole with its own character and identity.
Part C: Salary Brook Country Park and
Part G: Knowledge-Based Employment Land
The CLG were able, because of their intimate knowledge of and love for this part of the local area, to propose an alternative option to the two options proposed by the planners to accommodate Knowledge Gateway and University of Essex expansion land including sports facilities needs, which was adopted by planners with some good tweaks such as extending the Knowledge Gateway expansion land as a narrow border to the A133 beyond the ridgeline. We particularly welcome the requirement of ‘an appropriate transition between built development and open countryside’. Thus the area designated for Salary Brook Country Park area with its nature reserve, including wetland habitat, and the slopes with public rights of way, meadows and ancient woodland with their rich biodiversity and flora and fauna, has been safeguarded as a precious resource for both existing residents of east Colchester and future generations of the TCB Garden Community. It will also form an important strategic green gap like the other two mentioned in this policy to ensure the new Garden Community keeps its own identity and prevents coalescence with neighbouring settlements .
Part D: Wivenhoe Strategic Green Gap and
Part F: Sports and Leisure Park and University of Essex Expansion
Although some of the land south of the A133 and to the east of the B1027 will be used for sports field extension for the University of Essex, to be also available for local community use, the CLG support the use of this land for this purpose, with the proviso that the intended ‘strong landscaped edge’, including screening such as trees and ‘new enhanced habitats for a range of biodiversity’ takes place. We would also support broadly its use for cemeteries/ burial grounds or allotments.
Part E: Elmstead Strategic Green Gap – Whilst the CLG support this green gap and its intended designation as ‘rural’ thus limiting development to suitable uses consistent with this designation, we would like to see an approach by the Garden Community, perhaps in the future, to landowners to consider rewilding schemes or adoption of woodland by the Woodland Trust, to maintain or enhance biodiversity further.
Part H: A120 Business Park
The siting of this area south of the A120 and east of the A120-A133 link road is ideally located to ensure quick access by commercial vehicles from the A120 (which leads to Harwich Docks and ferry services to the continent to the east) – providing of course the link road is completed prior to house building and occupation. This would ensure that there are employment opportunies readily accessible to TCBGC residents, which is one of the goals of the Garden Community, that employment opportunities will be provided within it whereever possible, and its siting in this location will make it attractive to business investment and accessible from outside the community.
This however would not be the case if the Link Road was not complete, where the only access to this area would be from the A133 – already hugely congested – and if visitors and deliveries were coming from the south, eg the A12, there would be a huge detour until the junction of the A120 and A133 considerably further on on the A120, with then another trip back down the A133 to gain access to this site. Clearly, commercial vehicles travelling through Colchester on the A133 is not desirable either due to existing congestion and travel times (40 minutes on Cowdray Avenue and St Andrews Avenue at peak times for a 6 minute journey). It is thus essential if the A120 Business Park is to be a success that the A133-A120 link road is built in full before the commencement of house building.
Part I: Provision for Gypsies and Travellers
The CLG support the accommodation of a site for Gypsies and Travellers in the planned location, and acknowledge that it will be developed ‘in response to need’, as stated.
Part J: A133 Park and Choose Facility
The policy states ‘One new 'Park and Choose Facility' will be developed on land adjacent to the A133 in one of the two the broad locations shown on the 'Policies Map', where only one location is shown on this map, located at the junction of the A133 and B1027.
Whilst the CLG supports Park and Choose Facilities at this location, we do NOT accept the intended RTS route making use of this location. Instead we support the A133-A120 link road completed in its entirety and a revised RTS route which utilises the same Park and Choose facility as its starting point, then proceeding along the link road to the A120 in an anti-clockwise direction around Colchester, on a route that connects key locations such as the A120 business park, the hospital, Colchester Business Park, North Station, the Northern Gateway and returning in a loop from the station up Balkerne Hill A134 and following the A134 all the way to Elmstead Road, then Capon Road onto Boundary Road, these last 3 being dedicated bus routes which avoid the horrendously congested A133 Clingoe Hill. The route then joins up with the B1028/7 leading back to the A133 Park and Choose facility. This route is shown in the accompanying uploaded file, labelled Alt_RTS_Route.
The CLG supports the Park and Choose facility in this location but only in conjunction with a fully completed link road and the anti-clockwise RTS route around Colchester utilising the A120, because of the huge range of benefits it presents which align wholly with those of the Garden Community. This alternative plan also has the benefits of avoiding huge road improvement costs which are in any case time-limited and on avoiding additional congestion on existing overloaded routes and bottlenecks for both Garden Community residents and those of surrounding communities and traffic coming into Colchester on A133. Whereas the Rapid Transit System route based on a completed link road proposed by the CLG without huge road improvement costs and without adding to the congestion on local road infrastructure with a capacity for 50 years and beyond whilst expanding active travel and modal shift for both Garden Community and neighbouring communities.

The CLG proposes instead that that same amount is used to fully complete the Link Road, introducing an RTS route that utilises the link road onto the A120 and in an anti-clockwise route around Colchester, using roads which are already fit for purpose, and in some cases (Elmstead Road, Capon Road and Boundary Road) are already dedicated bus routes (First Buses services S1 and 87).
It is the CLG’s contention that the Housing Infrastructure Fund should indeed be spent on the necessary Link Road infrastructure it was provided to underpin, and doing this first, coupled with the better proposed RTS route described and shown in the attached document Alt_RTS_Route, will enable the Garden Community to achieve the modal shift required as well as relieving congestion on neighbouring road infrastructure, rather than adding to it as the current plan will do, and will replace the current plan which at great expense will only last 10 years by the author of the TCBGC Transport Evidence Base Part 2 Measures report own admission (p5) for a plan which has the capacity to support a thriving population of 17K plus fifty years and beyond, and achieve the goals and aspirations of the TCBGC – in fact it is fundamental to their achievement.

This policy states that ‘Planning and delivering the required infrastructure is at the heart of sustainable development for the Garden Community’ and that ‘Proposals must demonstrate that the required infrastructure to support the development will be delivered in a timely and, where appropriate, phased manner’. Whilst the CLG fully supports these statements, we do not believe a) that the councils have gone far enough in identifying specifically the infrastructure required for each ‘neighbourhood’ together with formalising its introduction to align with building homes from the start, and that this specification, found to a large part in the Infrastructure Delivery, Phasing and Funding Plan (IDP) should be embedded within the policy where it prescribes these measures, and b) a fundamental flaw has been introduced into the soundness of the DPD and the TCBGC project in allocating £21 million, needed to fully complete the A133-A120 link road, to an ill thought-out, time-limited and extraordinary costly RTS route. The CLG proposes instead that that same amount is used to fully complete the Link Road, introducing an RTS route that utilises the link road onto the A120 and in an anti-clockwise route around Colchester, using roads which are already fit for purpose, and in some cases (Elmstead Road, Capon Road and Boundary Road) are already dedicated bus routes (First Buses services S1 and 87).
It is the CLG’s contention that the Housing Infrastructure Fund should indeed be spent on the necessary Link Road infrastructure it was provided to underpin, and doing this first, coupled with the better proposed RTS route described and shown in the attached document Alt_RTS_Route, will enable the Garden Community to achieve the modal shift required as well as relieving congestion on neighbouring road infrastructure, rather than adding to it as the current plan will do, and will replace the current plan which at great expense will only last 10 years by the author of the TCBGC Transport Evidence Base Part 2 Measures report own admission (p5) for a plan which has the capacity to support a thriving population of 17K plus fifty years and beyond, and achieve the goals and aspirations of the TCBGC – in fact it is fundamental to their achievement.