1. Introduction

Warwick District is acknowledged as a beautiful place to live, work and visit. With its attractive countryside, excellent location, good communication links and rich heritage, the district has long been a focus for new development. One of the key tasks of Warwick District Council, as local planning authority, is to help manage the growth and development of the district. One of the key tools that we will be using to do this is a document called the "Core Strategy".

Warwick District Council has begun work on its Core Strategy, which will provide a framework of planning policies for Warwick District for the period to 2026. The process of preparing the Core Strategy involves a number of stages. At each stage, the views of local people and all key stakeholders will be vital in helping to shape the Core Strategy.

This Issues Paper is the first stage in this process. It has three purposes.

• Firstly, it sets out the context within which Warwick District is likely to change over the next 19 years. This includes a consideration of how much new development it may be required to provide.
• Secondly, it sets out some of the key issues that the Council considers arise from this changing context. How is this going to affect the lives of people living and working in the district? What are the key issues and challenges that we will all have to face in the next 19 years?
• Thirdly, it asks for your views. Do you agree with the issues that the Council has identified? Have we left anything out? Have we not given priority to an issue that you consider is important?

The remainder of this Issues Paper explores this further.

Section 3 sets out a suggested vision and a number of key objectives for the Core Strategy.

Section 4 considers in turn a number of key issues which will be facing Warwick District over the period of the Core Strategy.

Section 5 asks whether we have identified the right issues.

The Paper also includes a questionnaire and we would encourage you to complete this and return it to the Council. There is more information on how you may do this in the section "what happens next" in section 2 below.

Before beginning to look at the vision, objectives and key issues of the Core Strategy, the following section 2 provides some context and background information on the Core Strategy.