§ Mr. JenkinTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what is his estimate of the number of new homes that need to be built in(a) the county of Essex; (b) the northern part of Essex; (c) the Borough of Colchester and (d) the District of Tendring. [15350]
§ Mr. Raynsford[holding answer 11 November 1997]Regional Planning Guidance for the South East (RPG9) was issued by the Secretary of State for the Environment in 1994. It was based on advice provided by the regional conference of local authorities (SERPLAN). The Guidance sets out the additional dwellings required in Essex for the period 1991–2006 as 80,000. Guidance does not give a distribution between districts—this is decided in the Essex structure plan, prepared and adopted by the county council. In accordance with the 1994 Guidance, the pre-deposit consultation draft of the replacement Essex County Structure Plan provides for 84,600 new dwellings in Essex in the period 1995–2011, of which 12,650 would be in the borough of Colchester and 6,500 in the District of Tendring.
SERPLAN is currently preparing advice on the revision of RPG9, including the updating of housing requirements to take into account the latest household projections, economic and environmental factors.