East of England Regional Assembly Suspends its Endorsement of the East of England Plan due to Lack of Central Government Funding
Press release issued by the East of England Regional Assembly
10 December 2004
The East of England Regional Assembly has voted to suspend its endorsement of the East of England Plan, launched this week, due to lack of central Government funding for essential infrastructure for the region.
The Public Consultation on the Plan will still go ahead in order to gauge response and gather comments on the development proposals.
The following statement has been released by the Assembly today.
"The East of England Regional Assembly deplores the Government's grossly inadequate funding of the transport infrastructure costs associated with the additional 478,000 houses planned for this region between 2001-2021.
Bearing in mind that the Assembly's acceptance of this massive growth was conditional upon adequate government provision of the necessary infrastructure; and mindful of Lord Rooker's repeated written assurances that growth will not be imposed without the associated infrastructure. This Assembly wishes to make clear that it now regards its endorsement of the draft East of England Plan as suspended, pending a re-examination of the Government's willingness to support its own aspirations adequately in financial terms."
The motion to suspend the Assembly's endorsement of the Plan was made by the Conservative Group of the Assembly and was passed by 43 votes to 30 votes.
The Assembly will send this statement to appropriate Government ministers. The statement will also be distributed with all further copies of the draft East of England Plan, displayed on the Assembly's website, and will be submitted to the independent panel examining the Plan at the end of the Public Consultation period.
Related links:
Draft Regional Plan December 2004 (Acrobat ® format 2.8 MB)
"Regional Assembly approves East of England Plan" - press release issued 5 November 2004 by EERA (MS Word® format 56 KB)
East of England Regional Assembly - background to the draft plan
"Stansted confident of its place at the heart of the regional economy" - press release issued 11 November 2004 by BAA
BAA's "Scoping Report" Consultation on studies proposed to consider the environmental effects of further growth of Stansted (within its existing single runway capacity) - July 2004 (Acrobat ® format, 3.7 MB)
"Stansted confirms plans to submit planning application to grow beyond 25 million" press release issued 28 April 2004 by BAA
East of England Regional Assembly
Click here if you need to download a copy of the Adobe® Acrobat® Reader™. 
