The High Court may have decided the Local Plan process by Epping Forest District Council was legal but it was not democratic.

Councillors voted for the plan on instructions from the leadership of the governing group, despite the several misgivings many have spoken about in private. They voted without the site appraisals because they had not been published.

Then came the public consultation: residents were to comment on a plan without all the papers because EFDC did not put them all into the public domain until after the consultation was closed.

The EFDC Local Plan is not the public’s plan, but it belongs instead to a few councillors who run the majority group and it is being done to us and not with us.

Andrew Smith

Hemnall Street, Epping