COLCHESTER councillors have voted to press ahead with the creation of a 9,000-home new town on the border with Tendring.

During an extraordinary meeting of full council on Monday evening a majority of councillors voted to formally adopt section one of the authority’s local plan.

Section one, created between Colchester, Tendring and Braintree councils, includes plans for the new town, or garden community, to be built just off the A133 near Elmstead.

Two further garden communities, at West Tey and near Braintree, were removed after being deemed unviable by a Government planning inspector.

Section one also includes plans for a so-called rapid transit system to link the new town with Colchester and sets out 920 homes must be built in the borough each year to 2033.

The motion was passed after 29 councillors voted in support of adopting section one. Most members of the Conservative opposition abstained, while just two councillors - Andrea Luxford-Vaughan (Lib Dem, Wivenhoe) and Mark Goacher (Green, Castle) - voted against.

Mark Cory, leader of Colchester Council, said: “The council has attempted to look at a different way of doing development, not only pursuing widely-welcomed garden community principles, but working jointly with neighbouring councils and looking further into the future. This approach should be encouraged.

“However, I still believe the local plan process should be reformed, as the parameters in which they are set by Government are too focused on housing delivery in the most suitable places put forward by landowners. This can’t be right.

“In this plan, Colchester Council has worked with neighbouring councils to mitigate those factors and look to future-proof development.

“We still have a long way to go to ensure our councils deliver on the principles and infrastructure promised, whilst protecting existing communities and co-creating new settlements of the future that enhance biodiversity, deliver real environmental sustainability, and create healthy and happy communities we can be proud of.”

Julie Young, deputy leader of Colchester Council, said: “I am hugely grateful to everyone involved in what was a prolonged and often-complex process. I am pleased that we can now move forward with Section Two and begin to plan to meet our housing and other development targets in the most sustainable and appropriate ways possible. This is an exciting opportunity to do something different, and better.”

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The council will continue working on section two of its local plan which dictates where smaller developments will be built.

Colchester Council’s Conservative group leader Paul Dundas said: “This has been an incredibly long, expensive and ultimately not very successful process.

“However, we are where we are with it. I couldn’t vote to block it as doing so would have left us with no plan and given an open-ended invitation for speculative development.”

“My Group argued years ago never to embark on this project as it would not succeed and we have seen around 80 per cent of the proposals thrown out.

“It has cost nearly £10m of public money - over a £1m directly from the pocket of Colchester council tax payers, seen Full Council ignored over a £350,000 payment, caused great distress and worry to thousands of residents across the county and seen the much needed A12 widening delayed by years.”