Essex, lies and stereotypes

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jun/28/essex-lies-and-stereotypes

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Like the other new-town dreams, Essex is the product of middle-class ideas of what the working classes would like, not realising that they too want buildings that look great, in attractive public spaces at the heart of communities that work (The invention of Essex: how a county became a caricature, 27 June). And a look at the pictures on the opening page shows how dismally these planners failed: square and featureless slabs of concrete, grim open spaces with no obvious sign of involvement of a human brain. Perhaps the plumbing was better, there might even have been a bit more space for families, compared to the slums they left, but not much else showed any improvement.

Not that town planners have done any better since: few modern developments have any sign of an appreciation of visual appeal or even basic coordination of style between one building and the next. Here in Camden is perhaps an example of one of the worst set of planners. Building Approval Department would be the best description of their role, with a suitable acronym to confirm how awful they are. The heart of Swiss Cottage is being destroyed as I write, and the end result will be as big an indictment of today’s planners as anywhere in Essex.David ReedSwiss Cottage, London

• Your article presses the usual buttons about the county while hinting at its diversity. We in Colchester in the far north of the county have a tourist pitch that does not mention Essex. We have a high-class museum in a Norman castle which started life as a Roman temple, the centre of Britain’s first capital. We have a Roman wall to prove it, and the only known Roman circus north of Nîmes. Our excellent zoo is the sort you would take your Greenpeace-supporting relatives to. Our north Essex beaches range from Clacton – as Towie as you can get – to West Mersea with beach huts but no concrete prom. Check the tide before you come, it’s on an island.

If that was not enough we have Constable country, although we have to share it with Suffolk. Constable stood in Suffolk to paint The Hay Wain but most of what he painted is in Essex – and it’s still there. Colchester and neighbouring authorities are among the fastest-growing in the country. Some of the immigrants no doubt commute to London, but most come because it is a good place to live. Some Colcestrians would like to leave Essex and join Suffolk, but we don’t fit their stereotype either.Henry SpyveeColchester, Essex

• It was surprising Tim Burrows made no reference to Young and Willmott’s classic 1957 sociological study of Bethnal Green and “Greenleigh”, a large postwar LCC estate just outside London in Essex (real location – probably Loughton). Here, seeds of later consumerism/materialism – real and exaggerated – may be found in the authors’ comparison of how the people in Bethnal Green knew their neighbours and the street so well that judgments about people were based on personality.

On the new estate, people reported keeping themselves to themselves more so, “Judgment must be made on the trappings of the man (sic) … his appearance, his house, or even his Minimotor”, though I think the latter has yet to feature in Towie.Tony Cole (Essex born)London

• Essex was nearly split in two. In 1969 the Royal Commission came up with plans that would have joined north-east Essex with Suffolk. The idea of Suffex, as it was soon called, was killed off within a couple of years.Tom FrostGreenwich, London

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