Normal towns have a continual turnover of population as people die and others are born but new towns are different.
Where other towns have a spread of population over the age ranges, the initial adult population of a new town is made up mainly of relatively young couples who are about to start, or have already just started, families plus a fair number of elderly people to occupy the special accomodation that is always included in new towns.
Because there are so many young families in the town the proportion of children is much greater than in other towns, and inevitably these children grow up. When these children reach the age when they seek accomodation of their own their parents will just be into middle age.
Thankfully the death rate in middle age is quite low but this does mean that there is not the supply of housing that results elsewhere from the population turnover. Housing is usually freed-up either by families moving out of the town or by mortgage reposessions.
This mismatch between the supply and demand for housing is hidden during the first 15 to 20 years of a new towns existance because for that period most of the people who don't have housing of their own are still children! Eventually there is usually a surge in demand as the new generation reaches adulthood.
The result of this sudden increase in demand for 2nd generation housing has been that other new towns have burst out of their boundaries to build new housing developments in the surrounding countryside. One of the advantages of South Woodham's location from the planners point of view is that it is so hemmed in by areas of protected land (see The land we can't build on.) that there is nowhere for it to expand to.
Will they want to live here when they are older ?
If so, where will they live ?
If we choose to defend the town's boundaries and agree that there will be a demand for housing from our 2nd generation then we must decide how we want that demand to be met.
We must also bear in mind the consequences expelling our young people. If we do that then a town that was mainly young families and is becoming a town of middle-aged couples could end up as a town of pensioners.
The County has told Chelmsford Borough that it has to find room within its boundaries for almost 10,000 extra houses over the next decade or so.
Because of its current policies of not allowing villages to grow and of restricting the expansion of Chelmsford itself, the Council is currently unable to find sites for all these houses.
The County has, rather peversely, decided that places like Basildon (with its huge demand for 2nd and 3rd generation housing), Brentwood, Castle Point, Rochford, Rayleigh, Southend, etc are not going to be allowed to have any more new houses. Instead the A12 corridor (Chelmsford, Braintree, Colchester and Maldon) is to have all the housing.
One option being canvassed at the moment by the A12 Councils is that another large new town is built in central Essex. This town would be at least 4 times as big as South Woodham and, for transport infrastructure reasons, would most likely be situated along the A120.
The South Woodham Town Council has decided quite firmly that it is not going to discuss the future housing needs of our town. That will not stop our children from growing up, therefore I have taken on the task of starting a public debate.
This web site has been set up in answer to the grossly distorted versions of my views that have appeared in some of the local papers.
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