• Hostile Environment

    Hostile Environment

    It’s a Quintuple! The Gods have spoken. Communities Secretary Steve Reed came down from Mount Westminster this weekend and proclaimed that 15 councils in Essex will be abolished and replaced with five local authorities. I was surprised that UK Gov had not gone with the three unitary authority model proposed by Essex County Council, which…

  • Push Biking

    Push Biking

    The recent and successive cycle strategy documents from Essex and Maldon have failed to suggest what cycle routes on the Dengie could look like – so, I’ve had a go… [I should start by stating that the ideal situation would be a Dutch style network, including completely new cycleways taking the most direct line between…

  • The Essex-wide LCWIP

    The Essex-wide LCWIP

    Like me, many of you may have responded to the Essex County Council consultation on the ‘Essex Wide Walking and Cycling Infrastructure Plan’. The results of that consultation were quietly released last August (2025), so you may not have seen them. I’m still working through the documents and I welcome comment and feedback from anyone…

  • Urban Habitat: Burnham Library

    Urban Habitat: Burnham Library

    The planned extension to the Burnham Library building is interesting. The planning documents reveal it will house a Family Hub Delivery site, relocating the existing Family service from a temporary building at Ormiston Rivers Academy to this central location. This is all to be applauded. The service deserves a permanent home and facilities. Co-locating it…

  • Poop-Poop

    Poop-Poop

    Barely a week goes by now without a collision on the Dengie roads. A couple of months ago this sadly included two fatalities. There’s clearly a problem with drunk and drug driving, but this appears to be a factor in only a minority of cases and doesn’t sufficiently explain the frequency of dangerous driving incidents.…

  • Unfollowed

    Unfollowed

    I’m concerned by groupthink and getting trapped in an intellectual bubble where my own opinions are reflected back to me. To counter that I read across the political spectrum, and on social media I follow people who have differing perspectives on the world. On Twitter this has always included people whose views I strongly disagree…

  • The Lost Words

    The Lost Words

    By national government edict the 15 councils in ‘Greater Essex’ must reorganise to form new unitary authorities through a process of Local Government Reorganisation. This will change the current two-level council system into one in which there are new, bigger councils called unitary councils. I’ve been reviewing the four competing proposals submitted by existing councils…

  • Let a Thousand Knepps Bloom

    Let a Thousand Knepps Bloom

    Yesterday, Maldon District Council (MDC) shared on social media that they would be working in partnership with a property consultancy company that has launched a Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) scheme with the Braxted Park estate. The post and linked article are light on detail, and there’s nothing about it on the MDC website, but this…

  • Stitching the Path: Connecting Disjointed Walk & Cycle Routes 1

    Stitching the Path: Connecting Disjointed Walk & Cycle Routes 1

    A mission objective of the rECOnnect Dengie project is to improve the active travel infrastructure on the Dengie and get a safe network of routes connecting all the settlements. As I’ve noted previously, there are lots of good words about achieving this sort of thing in the strategy documents produced from the national level down…

  • Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?

    Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?

    A couple of days ago, Essex Highways released a press release about their plans for rolling out electric vehicle charging in the county, and used the opportunity to ask people where they thought the chargers should go. Their survey is pretty minimal, but there was enough in it to raise my concern. I’ve long been…