Crumps Farm, Essex: Planning applications for commercial space the size of the O2 Dome

Planners are considering giving the green light to more than 100,000 square metres of new commercial industrial units in the North Essex countryside.
Essex County Council is considering two planning applications to build 38,065 sq. m of commercial units on a disused landfill at Crumps Farm, Little Canfield [ESS/16/24/UTT & ESS/16/24/UTT/OUT].

Meanwhile, in a totally disjointed fashion – Uttlesford District Council [UDC] looks set to start building 84,541 sq.m of industrial commercial units up the road at Takeley [UTT/24/2682/SCO].

The UDC Local Plan projects a need for 21,000 sq.m of additional office space between 2016 and 2033 across the district.

This means that effectively the two councils are planning to build industrial and commercial units with a footprint the size of the O2 Dome with the two zones set to total a whopping 122,606 sq. m.

The case for building more commercial units in the Uttlesford [Stansted Airport and North Essex area] is FALSE.

Great Canfield Parish Council Chair, Cllr Virginia Barlow said:

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Bosses at Essex County Council and Uttlesford District Council want to saddle us with a massive amount of urban sprawl commercial units.

No building should be considered until all the pollution leaking from the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of illegally dumped waste at the landfill is cleaned up.

The planners also want to build a giant car park and solar farm next to a nature reserve. This is madness and uncontrolled development of the worst kind that doesn’t care about the needs of residents of the rural villages of Little and Great Canfield.

​The planning application at Crumps Farm, Essex will DESTROY the visual character, wildlife and nature of the surrounding woodlands and the Flitch Way [15 mile-long Local Nature Reserve on an old disused railway line from Braintree to Takeley].

All of the road transport traffic for the Crumps Farm commercial units would cross the Flitch Way Local Nature Reserve at a single point totally destroying the character of this valuable public green space. The planning applications propose to build a car park of 700 spaces next to a treasured local walk.

Yes, the landfill requires remediation works to prevent pollution escaping into the rivers and wider environment, but why should that come at the expense of wildlife and nature around the site.

The leachate leaking from the site already poses a threat to human and wildlife health and will undermine attempts by the Mayor of London to provide a £3million regeneration for the River Roding further downstream in Ilford.

The O2 Dome has an approximate commercial square metre footprint of over 100,000 and Stansted Airport’s retail terminal is 10,600 sq.m.

These two planning proposals alone are proposing to provide enough commercial space within the local area as the O2 Dome in London or 12 Stansted Airport terminal buildings and associated traffic to the local road network. A large part of Uttlesford’s projections also already incorporate significant quantities of floorspace at Great Chesterfield Research Park with some 25,000 sq.m already granted planning permission.

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