The housing minister has threatened to intervene in an Essex authority which last week controversially confirmed its decision to withdraw its local plan.

Last week the Conservative-run council, which hasn’t had a new local plan since 1998, voted 19-11 in favour to confirm a vote first made in February to withdraw its draft plan. However, it has emerged that housing minister Stuart Andrew (pictured below, left) wrote to the authority prior to the vote saying he was “very disappointed” by the proposed withdrawal.

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