Epping Society on Front Page of Local Guardian (Again)
- Mar 31
- 2 min read
We are pleased to report that Epping Society finds itself on the front page of our local Epping Forest Guardian Newspaper for the second time in about a month.
The reason is of course the very robust position that we have taken over EFDC's pushing through with the South Epping Masterplan despite resukts from its own consultation showing 3 in 4 of us object to the current plans.
At a meeting of the EFDC Cabinet in March the decision was literally and metaphorically bulldozed through with total dosregard for their own consuktation process. The consultation document which runs at over 300 pages was witheld and on,y released in February after The Epping Society submitted a 'Freedom of Information Request'. The document is damning and shows 3 out of 4 people reject the plans and it contained over 100 pages of concerns.
These 100 pages of concerns where reduced to 5 lines on page 11 of a 12 page briefing document and reflected in the mildest of terms.
In our view this is an abuse of process and a dereliction of duty.
One of the reasons given for supporting the plan is that 40% will be allocated as affordable housing. That is until the developers decide that it isn't affortable for them and ask for this number to be dramatically reduced as was the case with the former Epping Primary School site. It will be presented by developers as a 'no option' scinario with some dubious accounting to show why.
Of course when this happens and the many other problems that Epping Town Mayor Cherry McCredie describes as having 'the makings of a disaster' the people who have subjected us to this will be nowhere to be seen.
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