Eight schools and 'vehicle-free zones' planned for huge new Essex town with 7,500 homes

Plans for a huge Essex town with 7,500 new homes will need eight new schools and could implement 'vehicle-free zones' at certain times to improve safety for children, new council documents have revealed. The Tendring and Colchester Garden Community is planned for land adjacent to the University of Essex, east of Colchester, crossing into the Tendring district. Plans include three secondary schools, five primary schools and at least seven nurseries to provide education for the large number of new homes.

According to council documents, the entrances to these new schools "must be" kept free from vehicles and congestion to improve children's safety, meaning parents might not be able to drop their children off at the school gates. Government papers state: “Vehicle-free ‘school zones’ must be provided around schools, with the area around the main pupil entrance entirely traffic-free, connected by safe and direct walking and cycling routes to the neighbourhood the school serves. "All schools should be well connected to the natural environment to provide the option of providing forest school sessions, and through their design and layout, encourage health and wellbeing, especially physical activity.



The Garden Community will be large enough to accommodate new homes and supporting community facilities and services, alongside employment land for business and industrial use. Read more: The hardest primary schools in Essex to get into ranked from highest to lowest Read more: Inside the eerie car park that's become a graveyard for abandoned taxis It will be served by a network of green and beautiful spaces to promote wildlife, attractive places, healthy living, recreational activity, sustainable drainage, and to tackle the climate emergency; and new services, facilities and infrastructure, including a new dual carriageway Link Road between the A120 and the A133.” Tendring Colchester Borders Garden Community joint committee, which is part of Tendring Council, will discuss the plans at a meeting on May 1.

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