Sir Bob Russell, who was Colchester’s MP for 18 years, says that more needs to be done to create new jobs in Colchester – and argues against building houses on the site of the former Paxmans factory.

COLCHESTER needs more job opportunities.

All these new houses – approaching 1,000 every year – where are the jobs for those who will be living in them?

How many of them will be existing residents from the Colchester area, and thus presumably are already employed?

But how many of them will be new to the area?

Where are the increased jobs which an increased population will need?

In what is said to be the fastest-growing borough in the East of England – with the Government-imposed housing targets seemingly the only thing which bothers the borough council – where are the jobs for all the new residents?

Colchester should be planning for extra employment opportunities. Losing existing employment land for housing is not helpful. It is counter-productive.

For this reason, I oppose proposals by MAN Energy Solutions to build 130 new houses on the site of the former Paxman factory off Port Lane where once more than 2,000 people worked.

This company has turned its back on Colchester.

The borough council should not allow the site to be lost to employment – it should insist that this site remains zoned for employment.

I warned councillors anything up to 20 years ago that by allowing parts of the Paxmans site to be used for housing would not be helpful to the long term because it would encourage in due course the loss of the whole site.

The only thing that surprises me is that the German-owned parent company (whose UK headquarters is in Greater Manchester) has not done this asset-stripping exercise before now.

MAN’s only interest is to maximise what it can from its Colchester site, and then depart.

The fact that the residential value of the site is greater than its value as a long-established industrial site is not a reason why the borough council should aid and abet MAN by removing a site used for employment for the past 150 years to make way for yet more housing.

Quite simply, Colchester needs jobs. The Paxman site should remain for employment purposes.