PLANNING experts have outlined the choices facing people when a consultation on future development in the district is launched later this month.

The Issues and Options consultation on the number of houses and jobs that should be provided in the district over the next 20 years and where these should go is due to be launched on July 30.

Chief council planner Ian White said: “We will have to release some land from the green belt. We’re being quite open about that from the word go.

“We’re very well aware that the protection of the green belt is the main concern.”

He said any re-drawing of the green belt boundaries would be done as part of the final local plan, rather than through a separate council vote.

One option being put forward as a potential space for development is land within the district that lies on the outskirts of Harlow.

“We could take 3,500 houses in this district on the edge of Harlow,” said Mr White. “It would not lead to significant environmental and other issues.

“I’m almost certain that we will get an application in September in that particular area, in this district adjacent to Harlow, for about 1,300 houses.”

He said that contributions from any developers wishing to build on the outskirts of the town would be put towards much-needed infrastructure in Harlow, such as roads and schools.

The district’s largest town, Loughton, which planners are looking at alongside Buckhurst Hill, cannot expand, as it is hemmed in by Epping Forest, a flood plain and a patch of green belt that is too close to Theydon Bois.

“The idea is that the largest settlement should take more growth and the smallest should take the smallest,” said Mr White.

“There’s no potential for growth outside the boundary, so we’re looking at all other settlements in the district.”

Areas around other towns and small villages will be put forward in the consultation, such as sites in the green belt to the north, east and south of Epping.

Richard Bassett, the council’s planning portfolio holder, said the local plan was needed to stop the Government’s controversial new planning laws favouring sustainable development coming into force in the district permanently.

“The government’s National Planning Policy Framework applies if all else fails,” he said. “It does leave you vulnerable if people want to argue about the green belt.”

The government’s policy is likely to apply to the district temporarily after March next year, as the next stage of the consultation will not start before May and the final plan is likely to be handed to the Planning Inspectorate in 2014.

The consultation will be posted to every home and business in the district and the council will set up temporary exhibitions on the consultation in libraries, as well as setting up Facebook and Twitter pages and making the documents available on its website, eppingforestdc.gov.uk.

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