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Voices4BelAir Community Association homepage
Our biggest achievement to date is a planning application to give planning permission to 132 chalets to occupy the whole year.
Updates about the EA's objection and district councils combining added 23 October 2026 in red
This became necessary because we found out from a leaseholder who had spoken to a local councillor that the reason for the PCN notices and the likelihood that everyone staying over winter without planning permission will be prosecuted is because of the government's plan to amalgamate Braintree, Colchester and Tendring Councils into one big authority - and Tendring needs to clear up matters it ignored first.
However, since the application went in, Andy Burnham became Prime Minister and immediately put these plans on hold.
Some say that the plans are cancelled, but that is not what the
Tendring DC web site says today.
The application continues though it has suffered a delay caused by the Environment Agency objecting to living all year in a caravan on a holiday park. The Planning Department has asked them to correct their mis-understandings (Or, less politely, read the flood risk report submitted with the planning application).
The planning department has told us they hope our application, and a correct response from the EA, will be reported (the word they used) to the planning committee on the meeting expected to take place on November 26th.
You can see the meeting schedule
here. Agendas are added 7 days before each meeting.
You can find our planning application, and by clicking on the Documents tab the first response by the Environment Agency
here. No doubt the Envirinment Agency's second response will be added in due course.
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A big re-write is taking place during August 2026.
After that, changes will be listed here.
29th August 2026
a lot of concern about the Parish Council objecting. My response added to homepage.
Updates about the EA's objection and district councils combining added 23 October 2026 in red
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Other objections to the application have been made by Councillor White and St Osyth Parish Council.
These caused quite a stir back in August, so I am going to address them here as well.
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First, as I explain below, it is likely that the Planning Committee of Tendring District Council will refuse our application. But their arguements are not going to convince the Government Appeals Inspector a year later, when we expect to be granted our application - not least because Andy Burnham's policy is to create more affordable housing, not less.
Open the objection by Councillor White here.
His objection is, in particular, the flood risk.
He asks Officers to read something written in 1959 after the dreadfull flood that killed many along the coast. Aparently, as a teenager he rowed a boat trying to rescue people. The event seems to be firmly in his core memory, which would mean it is an important part of who he is.
But he does not mention any of the three risk assessments that the District Council commissioned much more recently, that conclude that when they were written the Bel Air estate is safe. Nor does he mention the newer rocks protecting the sea wall beside us, nor the substantial new wall between the Martello Tower and Jaywick, nor the row of concrete blocks just placed across the path heading west that would seem to be reducing the wear and tear by wheels on the soil reinforcement in the sea wall of soil that goes all the way to Point Clear.
If you go into the St Osyth village hall, there is a plaque on the wall listing all the chairmen of the parish council.
John White was chairman several years in the nineties and several more in the noughties. He is common to both objections.
Someone posted the parish council objection on Facebook(c) and you can open what I was able to save here and here.
The objection is that the application is contrary to Policy PP11. Open that here. The policy begins with "Some of the District's holiday parks are shown as 'safeguarded sites' on the Policies Map. These sites will be protected against redevelopment for alternative uses either in part or in whole."
This is, if you like, a small problem for us.
Small, because it is a mistake.
Everywhere else on this map shown as holiday park is
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Caravans, mobile, not concrete foundations
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A business that pays business rates, not council tax like us
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Parks have facilities. Planning permission was granted in 1965 for our estate not to have the slipper bath (paddling pool) originally approved. Our planning permission is to have no facilities. Not be a Park.
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Licences. We have leases.
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Every occupier of a caravan has to record their main residence where they will go when their park shuts over winter. We do not.
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The Planning Manager assured us that he has told the councillors and the executive that Bel Air is not a holiday park. Therefore, relying on this map to say it is at appeal should fail.
The objection continues saying that the Policy PP11 seeks to protect holiday accommodation from pressure on local services, poor living conditions and increased flood risk. It says: the chalets were not designed for year round occupation.
Original design is one thing. Improvements since are another. There are many chalets with added insulation, double glazing, increased living space, a shower not there originally, solar panels, and so on; much of which was paid for by government, and government pays for most of those here all year to live here. (From a freedom of information request over a hundred chalets receive local council tax support or housing benefit, both or something else).
The UK population is growing. The number needing medical, social, housing, special education assistance is growing. The councillors cannot win saying that the vulnerable are not allowed in their parish of St Osyth and must be forced elsewhere.
There is no government or local authority policy that says these chalets are too small for 1 person. They are about the same size as an average studio flat, so they could be considered too small for a family.
Yet, the parish council objection claims "The Condition is necessary" without giving any reason why, or acknowledging that 48 properties between Beach Road and the back of Bishops Garden were already given planning permission to reside all year - contrary to all their claims today.
Planning must pay great attention to welfare, wellbeing and so on. Our community is a better place than where residents would need to go to if Councillor White evicts them. But of course he can't. Only a judge can force eviction and only if the person to be evicted had behaved very badly somehow.
Expect Tendring to refuse our application, and as the Planning Manager explained in the Village Inn last November, expect the appeal to succeed a year or so later.
And every constituent included in the application is completely safe from Councillor White while we wait for that decision and he sides with those he is not elected to represent.
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We found out that from Beach Road to the back of Bishops Gardens 48 properties already had planning permission to occupy all year. We are just asking for those chalets who wish it to be allowed to do the same.
The application has removed, for the 132, the threat of prosecution (magistrates court) for not filling in Planning Contravention Notices (PCNs) as well as prosecution for occupying midweeks over winter contrary to the planning permission granted in 1987.
In addition, one committee member has defeated Goldenbell Ltd twice in the county court with the defence that the freehold owner is fraudulent by claiming annually at Companies House to be dormant with no assets.
This same defence seems to prevent Goldenbell Ltd from enforcing the leases in any way.
But most of us receive 2 bills a year for ground rent and another for buildings insurance, each stating that Goldenbell Ltd is our landlord.
The legal rule is that no one can come to equity (the county court civil system) without clean hands. This means that if the freehold owner wants the county court to sort out a dispute (in this case no buildings insurance for 3 years) then it must have behaved properly itself first. But it hasn't. So Goldenbell Ltd withdrew twice.
This means no one should pay to keep a fence, nor pay to bring their window forward.
Nor pay or be blackmailed to be able sell their lease to anyone else.
Because Goldenbell Ltd won't take them all the way to trial in front of a judge.
Future business.
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We will be putting in more applications for those whose planning permission is for only 8 months of the year.
For instance, bungalows and flats on the estate and dwellings along Seawick Road, for those that want it.
But it is wise to wait to hear what objections the Council will put up against the first application before starting anything new.
Already, we know that Councillor White, a local councillor and a member of the planning committee, has called in the application to be discussed at a planning committee meeting. His objection is based upon flood risk.
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There are rumours that the company that collects the refuse is kicking off because they aren't paid to collect from us all year.
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Street lighting.
If the Tendring District Council Planning Committee turn down our application we will immediately appeal. That process takes about a year, so the 132 chalets included are safe from prosection till the appeal runs its full course.
If you want to give me your opinion, email me at treasurer@voices4belair.co.uk or put a note through my letterbox at 25A.
A lot of people have not read an original lease. Here is one of mine.
This is the title deed for the whole estate , that says Goldenbell Ltd paid £405,000 in 2015. This was supplied to me when I bought my pair of chalets in 2019. Some details may now be out of date. It lists every chalet, whether it was leasehold or freehold, when the lease expires, in case anyone is interested. 26 pages. Opens in a new tab.
During January 2026, I bought an up to date copy. It is copyright and not to be shared.
The 2019 copy should not be shared, but at more than 6 years old I doubt I will get into trouble. If you need to know if something was still the same in January 2026, please email me.
and
61B. Owned by Goldenbell Ltd. And plan.
119B. Owned by Goldenbell Ltd.
There could be others. Especially if they are run down and abandoned.
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