3.1 Eastwood

Eastwood is a suburban predominantly residential area on the north-west fringes of the Borough. It is a relatively modern area of Southend principally featuring post-war buildings. It is defined to the south by the A127 and to the north by open countryside, designated as forming part of the Metropolitan Green Belt (Map 13, Figure 14).

A substantial part of Eastwood is laid out to cul-de-sac style residential development, largely lacking the classic grid structure that defines most of the Borough. The style and format of buildings varies significantly but includes chalet style houses and more substantial properties in the ‘Nobles Green’ area. Eastwood is a relatively low-density part of Southend. The neighbourhood is well served by public open space and has good accessibility to the adjoining Cherry Orchard Way Country Park and Edwards Hall Park.

The main retail focus is a Morrison’s food store based on an out-of-town format at Western Approaches and a Lidl store situated on the junction of Progress Road and Rayleigh Road. Rayleigh Road contains a mix of small commercial uses, shops, restaurants and cafes as well as some community / health facilities, such as pharmacies and doctors’ surgeries. It also provides the main transport corridor and bus route linking the Eastwood Neighbourhood with Southend town centre and Rayleigh. The area is not well served by public transport, with the nearest stations being at Leigh (3 miles away) and Rayleigh (2.5 miles away) in neighbouring Rochford district and with a lack of bus services, namely to Leigh and generally running north/ south. The area contains three important employment areas at Progress Road, Airborne Close and Aviation Way with smaller estates at Comet Way and Laurence Industrial Estate. Key issues for the Eastwood Neighbourhood include realising the full potential of the employment areas north of the A127 to provide for future employment needs.

Map 13: Eastwood Characteristics

Figure 14: Eastwood Characteristics

Where we want to be

Eastwood will continue to be a suburban area interspersed with mature parkland with improved cycle and pedestrian links within the urban area and to the surrounding countryside. The vibrant Local Centres on the Rayleigh Road and at Western Approaches will continue to serve the local community, with the Rayleigh Road continuing to provide a public transport corridor, well served by buses, connecting the neighbourhood with Southend and Rayleigh town centres. The employment areas aligning the A127 Arterial Road will offer increasing employment opportunities. A draft set of priorities for Eastwood is set out below to aid feedback:

• Sustainable growth of the suburbs with intensification of residential development focused along Rayleigh Road, benefitting from a frequent bus service and access to a range of local shops and services.
• Residential development elsewhere in the neighbourhood mainly by infilling of existing plots and increasing the density of existing development.
• New residential development and conversions will be of a high standard of design, sensitive to the existing residential character.
• Promote the employment growth clusters at the major employment areas of Progress Road, Airborne Close and Aviation Way.
• Promote the smaller employment areas, Comet Way and Laurence Industrial Estate, for retention and renewal.
• Develop new employment land to the west of Nestuda Way to provide a quality offer.
• Development in the Eastwood Brook flood zone will be controlled by planning policies to mitigate flood risk.
• Strengthen walking and cycling connections throughout the area with enhanced routes and wayfinding, including links to the local centres, with improved bus links to Leigh and the Airport Business Park.
• Seek to safeguard existing green space, with access to Cherry Orchard Country Park and Edward Hall Park nature conservation area promoted and enhanced.
• Consider potential for agricultural land and smallholdings west of Nestuda Way to be released to realise strategic transport and housing ambitions.

The following profile seeks to build up a picture of the ‘completeness’ of Eastwood. Completeness is based on mapping the walking catchments around different day to day facilities (17 different facilities in total)*. The catchment areas vary by facility and reflect comfortable walking distances for the average, able-bodied person. The catchments are based on actual walking routes rather than ‘as the crow flies’ distances.

A high completeness score means a place has lots of facilities the community needs within an easy walking distance. This approach recognises the important links to health and social well-being, community cohesion and inclusion.

The completeness score for Eastwood, by infrastructure type, is summarised in the rainbow image below. For example 74% of the neighbourhood lies within easy walking distance to a health facility and 63% of the neighbourhood is within easy walking distance of sports and leisure facilities, while 23% is within easy walking distance of green space.

Eastwood ‘Aggregated Completeness Score’ = 50%

Map – as an example a high completeness score would be 14 –17 different facilities being within a reasonable walking distance from home. Conversely a low score would be less than 4 facilities within walking distance.

A number of potential land use proposals are identified for future housing, employment and open space. For each site, the location, proposed use and indicative amount of development (if applicable) is provided.

3.1.4.1 New Homes

The type and quality of the housing offer can have a significant impact on the health and wealth of places. Their ability to attract and retain people and provide support for those who need it relies on good housing and attractive and inclusive neighbourhoods.

Potential site proposals for residential development can be viewed in Map 14. Table 20a sets outs relevant information including, context and surrounding uses, proposed use, estimated number of new dwellings and what ‘components of growth’ the site contributes to in reference to Part 2: Housing Need (Table 2).

The sites have been promoted to us by landowners/ agents and are included here for comment. Table 20a also notes the amount of new homes that are likely to come forward over the lifetime of the plan through sites already with planning permission and windfall development.

For more information on each site an assessment can be viewed by clicking on the link reference in Table 20a below, or via the Councils website: Appendix 4: Site Proformas | Southend Local Plan

Map 14: Potential Residential Sites - Eastwood (excluding those with planning permission)

Table 20a: Potential Residential Sites - Eastwood

Individual potential sites listed below

Good quality urban design will be essential in new housing development if the character of the neighbourhood is to be enhanced.

Map 15 shows the Urban Forms of Eastwood neighbourhood. This has been informed by the Southend Borough Wide Character Study³ and is intended to provide a broad overview of the types and densities of development across the neighbourhood; this can range from low density, areas of detached housing, to high rise flats.

To assist with the preparation of development management and design policies, which will impact the scale, type and density of new homes, we are interested in your views on broadly what types of development you think should come forward in the neighbourhood. It may be that there are different parts of the neighbourhood that you think could accommodate different types of development.

Figure 15 provides a range of development typologies at different densities, for both houses and flats. We’d like to know whether there is a particular typology that you’d like to see come forward in Eastwood and within the different Urbans Forms as shown in Map 15. For instance you may believe the ‘Secondary Centre’ areas within Map 15 should accommodate the highest density development, such as flats typology F2 and F3, within Figure 15.

Figure 15 - Development Typologies

Map 15: Eastwood Urban Forms

The retention and provision of employment sites is necessary to enable balanced job and housing growth. However, employment land has relatively lower land values compared to residential and therefore it is important to safeguard or allocate sites to facilitate present and future economic growth. In the Eastwood Neighbourhood it is proposed to safeguard the existing employment areas (promoting the employment growth clusters in the major employment areas at Progress Road, Airborne Close and Aviation Way, and promoting the smaller employment areas of Comet Way and Laurence Industrial Estate for retention and renewal), and to allocate a new employment area at Nestuda Way to provide a quality offer (Map 16, Table 21).

Map 16: Eastwood Employment Areas

Table 21: Land Use Proposals in Eastwood – Employment Land

To ensure the vitality of town centres, the National Planning Policy Framework encourages local planning authorities to implement planning policies and decisions that support the role that town centres play at the heart of local communities, by taking a positive approach to their growth, management, and adaptation.

The Government recently introduced changes to the Use Classes Order which consolidates a wide range of uses including retail, food, financial services, gyms, healthcare, nurseries, offices, and light industry into a single use class (Use Class E) and any change of use of a building or land between those uses falling within this Use Class will not require planning permission. It is therefore proposed to define as “Commercial Areas”, centres where we will promote ground floor uses to be within Class E Use Class and encourage improvements to shopfronts and the street scene.

There are a range of commercial centres in the Borough that protect ground floor uses for business purposes (use class E⁴) and thereby perform a vital function by ensuring communities are served by a range of retail and commercial services. Eastwood’s commercial centres are set out in Map 17 and Table 22.

As of August 2021, the Government is also introducing expanded permitted development rights to enable Commercial Uses to be converted to residential without planning permission. Due to this there are limitations on safeguarding ground floor commercial uses within key centres from changing to residential. However, under Article 4 of the General Permitted Development Order a local planning authority can apply to the Secretary of State to withdraw specified permitted development rights across a defined area. The use of Article 4 directions should not be expansive and therefore if we were to use them to restrict ground floor commercial uses from changing to residential, we must focus them to the most important frontages. In reference to Map 17 and Table 22 we are interested in your views on which centres we should investigate for using Article 4 Directions in order to restrict ground floor commercial frontages from being developed to residential under permitted development.

Map 17: Eastwood Commercial Centres

Table 22: Eastwood Commercial Centres

^{4 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/757/made}

National planning policy allows for Local Plans to identify and protect existing green space so it is not built on unless an assessment demonstrates the open space, buildings or land are surplus to requirements; any open space lost would be replaced by equivalent or better provision in terms of quantity, quality and access; or the benefits of new sports and recreation facilities clearly outweigh the loss of the current or former use as open space. In this respect the New Local Plan seeks to protect the green spaces as set out in Table 23 and Map 18.

Table 23: Eastwood - Protected Green Space

^{_{*nurseries, primary schools, secondary schools, doctors, dentists, pharmacies, libraries, places of worship, public conveniences, community centres and halls, playing pitches, local equipped play space, amenity greenspace, allotments, natural and semi-natural greenspace, local and neighbourhood centres, town and district centres.}}