PLANS for 12 extra new homes at a North Fambridge development site - on land where new community facilities and employment opportunities were originally planned - will be decided at a Maldon District Council (MDC) meeting next Wednesday (14 July).

The proposals are for land West of Fambridge Road, which is part of a larger site that already had outline planning permission for 75 homes and up to 1,000 sq metres of "flexible commercial and community development space".

However, the 75 homes are already under construction and this new application is within the area outlined for commercial and community development - and this is one of the reasons that some objectors feel permission should not be granted.

One of the objectors writes: "The provision of community/commercial space in the original plans was used to justify the wider development, which sits

outside of the village footprint in an area in which development was previously prohibited, and the status of this land should not be retrospectively altered."

Another notes: "No infrastructure upgrades to benefit

the village have resulted from the new developments."

And another states: "The shops planned would be more useful to the village as would a doctor's surgery – if no uptake then nothing should be put there."

But MDC's planning officers refer to a report that shows there has been no interest in commercial and community development at the site in three years of extensive marketing.

In addition, officers point to the extra homes helping to

"make up the deficit in the Five Year Housing Land Supply". This is in essence the shortfall in the local authority's new homes supply against Government targets.

Officers have recommended approval of the application, though the decision rests with councillors sitting on MDC's North Western Area Planning Committee as the proposals are classed as a "major plan".