One trend we are happy to see is the conversion of large obsolete car dependent out-of-town retail barns to new uses. Although the policy looks good on paper, we have identified some issues from a site visit to Renovo in West Thurrock.
First the good news
Once we got to the estate we found perfectly good housing, built at reasonably high density. There were no shops or amenities on the fairly large site, but there were some nice communal open spaces.
The design of the site did a reasonably good job of absorbing the amount of parking that would be needed at this location.
Poor access
However, getting there on foot from the nearby railway station was an odyssey. There was no way to the housing that did not involve either walking through shopping centre service roads or alongside major roads.