From being a small market town, with perhaps 2,500 dwellings in 1945, Bishop’s Stortford started to grow immediately after the war, with the development of the Havers estate. This was followed by more housing to the south of Thorley Hill. The late 50s and early 60s saw large scale development in the north-east quadrant of the town - Kings Court, Cannons Close and the Parsonage estate. A little later the Plaw Hatch, Church Manor and Stortford Hall Park areas followed.
In the early 1960s the A120 passed through the town centre via North Street, Bridge Street to the Causeway and Hockerill Street. At Hockerill it crossed the A11(T). At times during the summer holiday period heavy traffic, east bound for the Essex coastal towns and northbound to Norfolk, would create actual gridlock in the town. The town centre gained some relief from the construction of the Causeway Link Road; but the situation at Hockerill had to wait for the opening of the M11 in the mid 70s to see any relief.
The town centre was still congested, largely due to east-west traffic. The County Council, reluctantly, accepted that the town had a serious traffic congestion problem and initiated the construction of the A120 by-pass, which was built very rapidly. However increases in the numbers of cars soon negated the relief gained.
At the beginning of the 1970s it became apparent that the Government was intent on making Stansted the third London Airport. This was recognised by the County Council in the early years of the decade, and in the First Draft Written Statement (September 1975) of the County Structure Plan 1976-1991 mentioned the possible expansion of Stansted Airport.
Construction of the Thorley Park estate commenced in the second half of the decade and when the last 71 houses are completed it will comprise about 2,800 dwellings. This addition to the town and the increase in car ownership, many dwellings having two or more cars, made congestion in the town centre a factor which was fully recognised in reports on major planning inquiries in the 1980s.
In approving the 1986 Structure Plan Review the Secretary of State included Bishop’s Stortford West as a major new housing location. Provision was made for 1,085 dwellings in the first review of the Local Plan (adopted March 1993) on sites defined as HS2 and HS3. The Secretary of State then approved the construction of another 900 dwellings on site HS1 (now known as St Michael’s Mead) together with a south-west by-pass cum distributor road. Thus a total of 1,985 additional dwellings were planned for the west of the town. These developments have considerably exacerbated the traffic congestion in the town centre, and the south-west by-pass does not appear to have given much relief to congestion at the Hockerill cross roads.
Bishop’s Stortford took 38.5% of dwellings built in the District between 1981 and 1991 and 45.2% between 1991 and 1999. The proposed distribution puts nearly 49% of the “to be planned for” number in the town.
Increase in number of houses in Bishop’s Stortford,
as a percentage of houses existing in 1981: 
Hertford and Bishop’s Stortford were of similar size in number of dwellings in 1981 (8,115 : 8,350), although by 1981 the development of Thorley Park was well advanced. Bishop’s Stortford will have grown by 5,617 dwellings, and Hertford 2,643 in the 20 years to 2001 (numbers from RLA Monitoring Statements).
The Report of the Panel following Herts County Council’s 1997 Enquiry in Public stated “Bishop’s Stortford has grown rapidly since 1981, partly because of Stansted Airport expansion, but apart from this it has accommodated more than its natural growth.... There are limited employment opportunities and further housing would bring in people from outside, resulting in longer distance commuting. The town already has a relatively congested histroric centre, which is not bus friendly, and the highway network serving the local movement is poor.” Expanding Stortford will simply suck in commuters whose work remains elsewhere.
The Local Plan gives no explanation is given as to why Bishop’s Stortford has greater need than other settlements. Is it based on the existence of the ASR land and the expansion of Stansted Airport? CAUSE can only conclude that it must be!
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