Background
Site location
The site is located north of Thurrock Garden Centre, east of South Road. Allotment gardens extend to the north of the Site, with modern housing development within the northeast of South Ockendon located beyond.
west of the site is bound by South Road, with rows of semi-detached houses located on the western side of the road.
The map below highlights the redline boundary of the site.
Planning context
Thurrock Council is currently in the process of preparing a new Local Plan to replace its current Local Plan from 1998 that is now long out of date.
The new Local Plan will determine where new homes, industrial space and infrastructure will be built in the future. The latest draft of the emerging new Local Plan allocates this site for residential development.
The Government requires Thurrock Council to maintain a five year supply of land for new homes. However, for years Thurrock Council has been failing this Government housing test and currently can only demonstrate a 0.91 year housing supply.
Although the site is located within the Green Belt, it only makes a very limited contribution to the purposes of the Green Belt as it is physically and visually well contained.
Its position on the edge of South Ockenden, alongside the tree belts within and surrounding the site, provide a natural boundary between the built settlement and the wider, open Green Belt, and as a result development here would not affect the purposes of the wider Green Belt beyond.
The existing green buffer and tree belt around the site will be retained.