Better Transport

Parklife is a single issue local residents' campaign group formed in June 2001 to oppose any current or future road schemes which would have a detrimental impact upon Priory Park and its immediate surroundings.

The current proposal to dual the A127/A1159 Priory Crescent for a stretch of 870 metres (scheme F5), would require the felling of 111 trees, concreting of up to 3000m2  of public open space, and the destruction of an East Saxon king’s burial site found in 2003, identified as being ‘the most significant archaeological find in living memory’.

Southend Borough Council has amended plans and currently intends to widen half of the length of existing single carriageway, due to cost increases from an originally agreed £3.5m in December 2001, to a figure of up to £25m (not including the eviction of protest site Camp Bling, and ongoing security) as of 2006. Campaigners fear that this amounts to ‘F5 phase 1’: a cynical ploy by the local authority to neutralise local residents' concerns before going ahead with the full widening at a later date. Parklife, Priory Park Preservation Society and Camp Bling have rejected this proposal, and continue to oppose the Priory Crescent road widening – either in part or in full.

We meet on the third Wednesday of the month from 7.30pm in The Last Post (Clifftown Road end), Clifftown Road, Southend on Sea.

We are fighting the proposals in the East of England Plan to build 10-25,000 houses north of Harlow in the Green Belt that would require a £2-300 million bypass and new junction on the M11.

The scheme would destroy 1,500 hectares of green fields. The area already has an excess of workers over jobs and the scheme will worsen this imbalance, increase out commuting and generate more traffic.

A vast swathe of rural Essex is under threat from the so-called 'A120 Braintree to Marks Tey Improvement'.

The name is misleading as the route proposed does not involve any improvements to the existing A120. The Highways Agency has proposed a new four-, possibly six-lane road involving an overall land take of 122.4ha of the best and most versatile agricultural land.

The proposed route would have an adverse impact on the Conservation Areas of Cressing, Silver End and Feering, and pass through both the Brain Valley and Blackwater Valley Special Landscape Areas. Cressing residents are particularly concerned about a proposed new split level junction on the Braintree/Tye Green green wedge.

The cost of the project has now risen from £312m to £374m.

The Essex Rail Users Federation is made up of individual rail user groups on the Great Eastern mainline in Essex (run by National Express East Anglia) and exists to represent and promote the interests of users of the Great Eastern rail services in Essex.

We meet quarterly in Chelmsford: get in touch for more details.