Tendring Colchester Borders Garden Community Development Plan Document (DPD)

The Tendring Colchester Garden Communities Project
I must apologise for being late with this and for it being an email, but my days of attending Committees and such are long gone. I am hoping, however, that a few thoughts might creep through the bureaucratic and over-long discussion times we live in.
• I am very much in favour of the new road linking the area to the A133 as a matter of urgency, not being pushed into the background. This could be such a boon to locals around here. The fact that it would clear jams on Clingoe Hill and divert traffic from the Colchester circuits for those going South or North suggest that Essex Highways and Colchester Borough should be funding it rather than the developers. There have been local pleas that public transport could and should benefit, too.
• I did, at one point, sit on the Colchester/Wivenhoe/Tendring Committee looking at our Wivenhoe town proposals, but I soon realised that Committees are, by no means, the best way forward design-wise. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I gather that the basic layout of this new Project, so far, includes the number and type of housing units, and things like local amenities and transport have been agreed. ******* (redacted personal information) tells me that an architectural practice is helping to coordinate the next stages. If correct, this would mean that the developers and the Planners, with opposing points of view, would not be left to fight it out, leaving the usual mess of pastiche that results.
• And this is where I would like to see more profound input from your good selves and specialists. We all want the scheme to succeed. This must start with inspirational design to create a community – again, not possible by committee or even with democracy as we know it. (70% don’t vote – perhaps a tiny number knowing they don’t have the expertise; “25% on Party lines and a minute fraction, who carry most of the decision-making – a mixture of tub thumpers or NIMBIs.) Who, for example, would expect a Concerto, a Novel, or a painting to be designed by a Committee?
• This is no way to decide on highly subjective design issues, and architecture is, or used to be, an Art. You only have to look at our pre-industrial revolution buildings to see that we have evolved no twentieth-century return of that art. For a trained architect, like me, with many years on the rock face, it is difficult enough. Of course, one can incorporate green open spaces, and one can and must make the housing efficient, ecologically, net zero and cutting CO2 emissions. But here, too, ideas continue to evolve – timber, an authentic Essex tradition (not pastiche, please), is now back in fashion because brick and concrete use a vast amount of energy in their manufacture, and prefabricating is making building more efficient and layouts more person orientated and flexible. More new homeowners are buying off the drawing board, so to speak. They would have some say in a well-ordered prefab system, with lots of choices about layouts – kitchen /dining, open plan, avoidance of waste of space in corridors and, almost as important as any, making the voids in roof spaces useable and not full of trusses. Although cheaper initially to the developers, this is a terrible waste of space, which, in the long term, is expensive to restructure.
• How can planners and developers, with their limited and conflicting goals, cope with rational answers for all our sakes? Even Mr Gove has got into the act! I came across a few helpful tips about creating a community recently, like, as a starting point, are there any features already on the site? Perhaps an old cottage or a barn. Are there some old trees or good hedgerows which can help form a sense of place? Are there some splendid views of the existing landscape that should be exploited? (Some of our new developments stick a garage in the most fabulous positions.)
• New homes must be exciting and stimulating places to live in and should incorporate peoples’ own lifestyles. They must, too, foresee the owner’s future needs as far as possible. It is all challenging, especially under the present systems, but it can be done. The Quakers managed it one hundred and fifty years ago.
• Finally, another mantra of mine has been that a building development is incomplete until it has a planted and thriving landscape. Here we are blessed with experts in the area who will be eager to contribute.
I trust that some of these thoughts might be helpful.

The Tendring Colchester Garden Communities Project
I must apologise for being late with this and for it being an email, but my days of attending Committees and such are long gone. I am hoping, however, that a few thoughts might creep through the bureaucratic and over-long discussion times we live in.
• I am very much in favour of the new road linking the area to the A133 as a matter of urgency, not being pushed into the background. This could be such a boon to locals around here. The fact that it would clear jams on Clingoe Hill and divert traffic from the Colchester circuits for those going South or North suggest that Essex Highways and Colchester Borough should be funding it rather than the developers. There have been local pleas that public transport could and should benefit, too.
• I did, at one point, sit on the Colchester/Wivenhoe/Tendring Committee looking at our Wivenhoe town proposals, but I soon realised that Committees are, by no means, the best way forward design-wise. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I gather that the basic layout of this new Project, so far, includes the number and type of housing units, and things like local amenities and transport have been agreed. ******* (redacted personal information) tells me that an architectural practice is helping to coordinate the next stages. If correct, this would mean that the developers and the Planners, with opposing points of view, would not be left to fight it out, leaving the usual mess of pastiche that results.
• And this is where I would like to see more profound input from your good selves and specialists. We all want the scheme to succeed. This must start with inspirational design to create a community – again, not possible by committee or even with democracy as we know it. (70% don’t vote – perhaps a tiny number knowing they don’t have the expertise; “25% on Party lines and a minute fraction, who carry most of the decision-making – a mixture of tub thumpers or NIMBIs.) Who, for example, would expect a Concerto, a Novel, or a painting to be designed by a Committee?
• This is no way to decide on highly subjective design issues, and architecture is, or used to be, an Art. You only have to look at our pre-industrial revolution buildings to see that we have evolved no twentieth-century return of that art. For a trained architect, like me, with many years on the rock face, it is difficult enough. Of course, one can incorporate green open spaces, and one can and must make the housing efficient, ecologically, net zero and cutting CO2 emissions. But here, too, ideas continue to evolve – timber, an authentic Essex tradition (not pastiche, please), is now back in fashion because brick and concrete use a vast amount of energy in their manufacture, and prefabricating is making building more efficient and layouts more person orientated and flexible. More new homeowners are buying off the drawing board, so to speak. They would have some say in a well-ordered prefab system, with lots of choices about layouts – kitchen /dining, open plan, avoidance of waste of space in corridors and, almost as important as any, making the voids in roof spaces useable and not full of trusses. Although cheaper initially to the developers, this is a terrible waste of space, which, in the long term, is expensive to restructure.
• How can planners and developers, with their limited and conflicting goals, cope with rational answers for all our sakes? Even Mr Gove has got into the act! I came across a few helpful tips about creating a community recently, like, as a starting point, are there any features already on the site? Perhaps an old cottage or a barn. Are there some old trees or good hedgerows which can help form a sense of place? Are there some splendid views of the existing landscape that should be exploited? (Some of our new developments stick a garage in the most fabulous positions.)
• New homes must be exciting and stimulating places to live in and should incorporate peoples’ own lifestyles. They must, too, foresee the owner’s future needs as far as possible. It is all challenging, especially under the present systems, but it can be done. The Quakers managed it one hundred and fifty years ago.
• Finally, another mantra of mine has been that a building development is incomplete until it has a planted and thriving landscape. Here we are blessed with experts in the area who will be eager to contribute.
I trust that some of these thoughts might be helpful.