PUBLIC CONSULTATION NOW OPEN!
The council's public consultation is now open for your input, click the buttons below for the consultation portal (left button) and our instructions page for more help (right button). The consultation closes on the 14th of January 2026, so get your comments heard before it's too late!
LOCAL PLAN COMMITTEE MEETING
11th February 2026
17:45
Town Hall, Colchester High Street
This meeting has been brought forward and a summary of the responses and a "revised" plan will be presented to the Local Plan committee. They will be voting to either progress the plan to the next stage (Section 19) or will vote against and require further work be undertaken by the planning department. This is anticpated to be a close vote, considering the upcoming elections in May. We will be making representations during the "Have Your Say" section and pushing for delay but we need as many local residents to be there to show the Local Plan Committee the depth of feeling of St John's Residents. If you can come please be outside the Town Hall on Colchester High Street at 17:45.
COMMUNITY QUIZ NIGHT
6th March 2026
£10 per person
19:00
St John's Community Hall
Join us for another fun fundraising event at St John's Community Hall (next to St John's Church). This time we'll be doing a quiz night, with maximum teams of 6 and an exciting prize of £100 cash! Please bring your own nibbles and drinks.
To request tickets please email stjohnsfieldsra@gmail.com stating how many tickets you require and the name of your team (click the button below to send your email request). We will direct you to our GoFundMe page. Once paid we will issue your tickets.
OBJECTION REPORT
Your generosity and support enabled us to commission a planning consultant, ecologist and cultural arborist to write a detailed report with evidence and feedback from residents objecting to our fields (plot PP9) being included in the Colchester City Council Local Plan.
The planning department will now need to review all evidence submitted in the next few months and we anticipate a revised Local Plan to be submitted for approval in August. During this time the planning department is expected to undertake or commission more detailed work to address the issues/concerns raised and we anticipate that we will need to interrogate any reports they publish which may require utilising further external expertise. If approved in August the next stage will be for the Local Plan to go to an independent government inspector whose job is to review every detail of the Local Plan and the supporting evidence produced by the planning department. In recent years the council have already become unstuck with a planning inspector with their weak ecology reports on Middlewick, which is why Middlewick was removed from the Local Plan. We are hoping that there will be the same level of scrutiny for our fields. We will need to submit our evidence and make representations at this stage too.
Fundraising will therefore need to continue throughout 2026 and we will be organising a series of community events throughout 2026.
DONATION PROGRESS
Our recent fundraising event was an absolute hit! Thank you everyone who came to the event - we all felt a real sense of community spirit from start to finish. On just one night, we managed to raise an incredible total of £3299!
If you were unable to attend this time, not to worry - we hope to host many more events in future.