At Wednesday’s Extraordinary Full Council Meeting, the Green Group on Southend City Council made their position unmistakably clear regarding a motion brought to Council. While we viewed the motion as politically motivated, our Green Councillors delivered powerful and heartfelt speeches opposing any development on Bournes Green.
The Green Group had submitted an amendment to ensure that this land would never be built on, but was rejected.
Cllr Richard Longstaff, Green Group Leader said;
Nationally, the Green Party strongly opposes to building on metropolitan greenbelt land, which exists for a reason to prevent urban sprawl, protect nature and support mental and physical wellbeing through access to green spaces.
We’re also against administrative impropriety, where council is bypassed by any administration and council officers in making applications to government without full council debate. We’ve already voted against this as a council. I said very clearly last year how local government is based on democratic principles. This, again, doesn’t feel very democratic. Our residents deserve better. Bournes Green lightly serves as a valuable, ecological and community resource. Once built on its environmental and social value, cannot be recovered.
Alternatives exist. Southend, like many other urban areas, has underutilised brownfield sites, empty homes, and outdated commercial buildings that can be repurposed as repurposed or refitted as we seeing on on a yearly basis as the population grows. Prioritising urban regeneration and retrofitting high quality infill housing aligns with sustainable planning principles.
This type of proposal should be mastermind by planning and urban design professionals, not politicians and council officers. Southend is a peninsula of land the size of Manhattan. Is constrained on the north by greenbelt and at the south by history. It’s fairly unique. It is not Cambridge, Chelmsford or Colchester. It can’t expand in all directions. It needs a joined up masterplan to deal with sustainable growth.
Climate commitments in developing greenbelt land is inconsistent with local and national planning policy and environmental goals. Such development represents urban sprawl, which increases car dependency, harms biodiversity, releases stored carbon from soils and vegetation. It also risks food security for communities in the event of a food supply chain issue have we’ve seen recently, in recent years. In times of continued instability, with 55% of our food imported, we as a council, need to think very carefully about our development plans and future food security. This land is agricultural land.
Affordable housing shouldn’t be a Trojan horse. While housing needs is urgent, particularly for genuinely affordable homes, developers often use this argument to justify building executive homes on greenbelt land that represents urban sprawl and creates car dependency.
You can’t build infrastructure on a constrained city like Southend. Moving people through cities is what makes cities function. We can’t build an M11 to London. This is not the way to plan sustainable development. We believe we should be focusing on community led housing, co-operatives and council led affordable homes in existing urban areas instead. This needs a joined up approach with a more robust, forward thinking plan for growth.
Cllr Stuart Allen added;
I speak tonight not just as a councillor, but as someone who cares deeply about the future of our communities and our environment. Let me be clear: the Green Party had no part in the decisions around Bournes Green. We were elected in 2023. We weren’t in the cabinet. We didn’t vote for this and we won’t defend it.
What we have done is consistently oppose building on green-belt land. Bournes Green is not brownfield. It’s agricultural land, a vital green buffer between Southend and Rochford. Now we face plans for up to 10,000 homes. Let’s be honest, this motion has more to do with political point-scoring than protecting the land. And residents deserve better.
This kind of development risks turning Southend into a featureless sprawl. We’ve seen it before — unaffordable homes, watered-down social housing, and estates with no shops, no schools, no services. Meanwhile, over a million homes nationwide already have planning permission but haven’t been built. Thousands are empty – including here in Southend. We don’t need to build over our last green spaces to meet Local demand.
With climate change accelerating, land like Bournes Green could help feed our city. Once it’s lost, it’s lost forever. Neither the motion nor the amendment guarantees protection for this land. Had our amendment been accepted, it would have.
But I ask this chamber: stand for green spaces. Stand for smarter, fairer development.
Let’s build a Southend worth living in – not just for now, but for the future.
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