WELCOME TO FELSTED

Residents may wish to be aware that TotalEnergies will be attending the Rayne Community Coffee morning on Saturday 27th September 10am – midday.

Venue The Old School Room, Shalford Road, Rayne CM77 6BS
Felsted residents are encouraged to attend.

Whether the Neighbourhood Plan supports the Water Tower site (or any other) for development depends on the ability of the Felsted Neighbourhood Plan Review Group (FNPRG)  to complete the review of the Neighbourhood Plan (NP).  A problem has been encountered however, which the FNPRG are, with UDC’s help, trying to resolve .

UDC has said a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is required for Felsted’s NP, without which it cannot proceed to Reg 14 in the Neighbourhood Planning process.  Earlier this year however, and without notice, central government withdrew all funding for Neighbourhood Planning which includes Felsted’s SEA.  UDC is now trying to fund SEAs for parishes, like Felsted, that are trying to complete their NP’s or Reviews.  The outcome of the funding request should be known quite soon. If funding is granted the SEA then has to be commissioned (from AECOM) and completed, which can take several weeks.  In reality, the FNPRG don’t expect to see a SEA report before the end of September at the earliest.  In the meantime, they continue to work on the plan as best as they can, and minutes are available on Felsted PC’s website.

Outside of the NP process however, the Parish Council’s Planning Committee is required to comment on the planning application made in respect of the Water Tower site.   They have also been formally notified that, in the next two weeks or so, Bloor Homes will be making a planning application for the site at Watchhouse/Bannister Green for circa 100 new homes.

In respect of the Water Tower project, the FNPRG have had further dialogue with the landowner’s agent and expressed very serious concerns about site access. Whilst the FNPRG are obliged to be reasonably accepting of the increase in traffic in Garnets Lane from the completed and occupied homes – not something they want anywhere in the parish – they have been forceful in expressing their very serious concerns about the impact of construction traffic during the development phase and have urged the construction of a ‘haul route’, using Chaffix Farm land in Braintree Road to be included in the application.  They have said that it is very unlikely that an application that proposes Garnets Lane and Stebbing Road as construction access will be supported by the Neighbourhood Plan Review Group.  A reply is awaited.

Cllr Richard Freeman, as Chair of the Parish Council’s Planning Committee has also written to Essex Highways asking for specific consideration to be given to the highway’s issues in any construction phase of the application and has also applied to UDC for a deferral on the Parish Councils response to the application, pending the outcome of that enquiry or sight of ECC Highways formal response to the application.

In respect of the Bloor Homes site, the planning consultants have adjusted the plans to, in their opinion, overcome any objection based on coalescence.

The inspection of the UDC Local Plan (LP) has complicated matters still further.  The Inspectors assessing the plan have indicated that they are concerned that the housing number pipeline in the UDC plan has been miscalculated. (To be honest this is all more technical than the FNPRG understand!) The outcome is that a 5% figure used in defining the ‘buffer’ in the UDC housing supply will need to be subject of a ‘modification’ in the LP and a 20% multiple applied.  FNPRG’s understanding of the Inspector’s comments is that some further increase in housing numbers across the District will be required to ensure the LP passes inspection.

Given the uncertainty and pressure from central government surrounding housing numbers nationally, the assessment of the FNPRG is that it is not in the least inconceivable that both the Water Tower and the Bloor Home sites could receive approval outside of the NP process.

Prior to the Planning Inspectorate’s comments about the LP (referred to above), the Parish Council wrote to the CEO of UDC challenging the methodology in the LP of the housing allocation across the parishes, which seems to condemn ‘Larger Parishes’  (of which Felsted is one so designated) of becoming ever larger. Again a response is awaited.

Felsted Parish Council has been advised that TotalEnergies has written to the UK Planning Inspectorate formally withdrawing their proposed submission of a Development Consent Order (DCO) which is the official preparative application in the consenting regime for an NSIP.

As advised by Felsted Parish Council on February 27th, 2025, the INSIP was for a large solar farm development covering circa 650 acres that was being proposed to be located on land between Watch House Green and Rayne.

TotalEnergies advise that whilst they are withdrawing from the NSIP proposal they continue to plan to bring a cross-boundary planning application forward which will be submitted to Uttlesford District Council (UDC) (and Braintree District Council), but this will no longer be as an NSIP but it will be in the form of a conventional Planning Application.

This will give Felsted (and Uttlesford District Council) the opportunity to consider the proposal and respond on behalf of Felsted in the usual manner for a Planning Application.

A copy of the TotalEnergies letter (dated 15th August, 2025) can be read here.