A watchdog group has slammed plans for a massive new estate on the outskirts of Witham.

Work starts this summer on the 115 acre Maltings Lane estate. It will attract some 3,000 people into more than 800 homes, plus dozens of firms which will move onto the 24 acre business park.

But the development will create a catastrophic volume of traffic, says a cross-section group set up to monitor the development.

It is causing such concern that the worried team has called for the multi-million pound development to be postponed.

Things have changed since it was given outline planning permission 10 years ago, said district councillor Mrs Helen Pitchforth, a member of the panel.

"Everybody there is very concerned about parking difficulties and the traffic at this moment," she said.

"We all fear that when this is up and running the situation will be catastrophic. This is a very big development and parking and traffic problems can only get worse.

"There are three schools in the immediate vicinity, and parking in Maltings Lane is very congested now in school times. And the lorries which will go back and forwards during the years the estate takes to build are too heavy for Sauls Bridge in Maldon Road, so Maltings Lane will be used even more.

"Yet they are going to close Maltings Lane and Howbridge Road completely for some time when they put the big sewers and the main services in and I simply don't know where the traffic will go while that work is in progress," said Mrs Pitchforth.

Residents on the new estate would not want to walk to Witham station, or Hatfield Peverel station, and the group felt that the A12 could not cope with any more cars.

The panel represents school, district and town council, the Rotary club, county highways, police, schools and the developers.

Mrs Pitchforth said the group accepted that the developers were to provide a link road between Witham and Hatfield Peverel, but that would not be in place until the first 300 houses were occupied.

"We needed that road long before the estate was even thought of. Now it's not enough," she said.

Green campaigners are equally uneasy. Party chairman James Abbott condemned the development as unsustainable. "This scheme was conceived in the 80s. It flies in the face of current policies to curb traffic and regenerate town centres," he said.

However, the town council favours the project. Leader Phil Barlow says it will create new vitality.

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