Column: Former MP and current Colchester High Steward Sir Bob Russell is calling for a halt to development at Middlewick.

WHO supports building 1,000 houses on Middlewick, in south Colchester?

Do any of the 50 borough councillors want to see Middlewick swallowed up with an urban sprawl stretching from Mersea Road to Old Heath?

If any do, they are keeping quiet.

Why, then, are plans going forward for this appalling development?

In 2016, the Government announced the closure of the Ministry of Defence firing range at Middlewick, along with others around the country.

The MOD told the council they wanted 2,000 houses at Middlewick.

This is double the number currently being talked about.

But do not be fooled.

If the MOD get the OK for 1,000 homes, in a few years I believe they will be back for another 1,000, despite the flowery words they are currently spouting.

Those who are blaming Colchester Council are wrong.

The only reason Middlewick is under threat is because of the MOD’s decision to shut the firing range and sell the land for housing.

If it was not for this, the threat would never have arisen.

Middlewick is not a “brownfield” site - a definition used to support building houses on land which had a previous developed use, such as the former barracks and Hythe area.

In contrast, Middlewick is land that has never been developed.

Five years ago, the Government announced the closure of various defence assets around the UK, including the firing range at Middlewick.

This came as Colchester Council was finalising the Local Plan, a legal requirement imposed by Government on councils, for future development across the borough.

Unspoilt – the open space of Middlewick, as viewed from Abbot’s Road, where there are proposals to build 1,000 houses, creating an urban sprawl all the way from Mersea Road to Old Heath

Unspoilt – the open space of Middlewick, as viewed from Abbot’s Road, where there are proposals to build 1,000 houses, creating an urban sprawl all the way from Mersea Road to Old Heath

The council was placed in a difficult position.

To say “no” would inevitably result in a zero decision being challenged. Thus the compromise of 1,000 houses.

Where I suggest the Local Plan committee slipped up is that it did not tell the MOD which bit of its large land-holding at Middlewick could be built on.

With the benefit of hindsight, the committee should have insisted that land to be developed should be to the south of the firing butts.

This would leave the wild heathland area nearest Abbot’s Road in its current natural condition - the only surviving area of historic heathland left as Colchester became urbanised over the past century or so.

Can development of this area be stopped?

Yes, if there is a political will to do so.

Borough councillors have the power to say “no” and fight the MOD at a planning inquiry.

There is a precedent.

High Woods Country Park in north Colchester would not exist if it had not been for councillors, 45 years ago, voting by a narrow majority to stop a huge housing estate (much bigger than what is proposed at Middlewick) being built as an urban sprawl from Turner Road to Ipswich Road.

Land at the western end (Turner Rise) was built on, but the bulk of the proposed development was stopped, even though it was included in the equivalent of the Local Plan at the time and had the backing of council officers and leading councillors.

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Backbench councillors, of whom I was one, voted to stop this appalling development.

Today’s borough councillors could do the same at Middlewick.

Time for the rhetoric to stop – and for councillors to refuse to allow housing on the area of Middlewick proposed by the Ministry of Defence.

Another reason why development at Middlewick should be opposed is that it flies in the face of Government announcements over the past 12 months in respect of promoting the natural environment, which building on Middlewick would destroy.

Colchester Council should urge the Government to back Government policies!