Barford, Sherbourne & Wasperton Joint Parish Council

I have responded on behalf of the JPC, with site specific comments, using your online system.

The system works well for responding to each site but does not allow wider comment - this is disastrous as most of our councillors' and residents' views go beyond the site specifics.

Please take on board the following generic views on this consultation and its proposals;
* This is a poor consultation and its timing parallel to the New Local Plan consultation has sadly had a debilitating effect on that consultation - or was that deliberate?
* The sites selected and proposed are very poor and their presentation is even worse.
* The GT12 and GT16 confusion is inexcusable and unacceptable - and the author should be made fully aware of their shortcomings - presumably it was a table-top study from someone out of the area...
* The JPC sees no reason why G&T sites should be considered any differently to any built development sites - indeed there are significant reasons to believe that the criteria applied should be stricter - eg caravans are at greater risk in flooding situations.
* Many of the proposed sites would never currently be considered for built development - evidenced by their not appearing in the main NLP proposals.
* This brings us to a major principle - G&T sites should be considered along with AND WITHIN the NLP
* G&T sites should be included within new development areas - such as the massive swathes proposed south of Warwick and Leamington - where they can be properly designed, provided at an early stage and fully integrated with their surroundings rather than parachuted into a settled community. This would make planning sense, would be acceptable to the major developers - they agree! - and most importantly would actually be best for the G&T community
* The consultation carried out by Salford University to measure Permanent G&T site needs is not remotely convincing. Their sampled population may well not be representative of actual need and would appear to be simply ticking a consultation tick-box. There are empty sites to the north of the district.
* The Sustainability Appraisal also lacks convincing evidence - it has clearly been dumbed down by its traffic light scoring system rather than the more conventional numeric scoring. The fact that on certain criteria some sites score wildly different extremes but are not averaged is bizarre! The fact that GT16 is scored as it is must cast the final doubt on this whole consultation - by objective assessment of the Sustainability Appraisal results for that site it would appear to rank in the top THREE despite being a flood compensation area!
* Whilst we understand, but may not actually agree with, the apparent requirement to address this matter on a District basis we are concerned that no cross-district boundary consideration or cooperation seems to have taken place. Specifically we consider that the Stratford DC site on the A46 just outside Sherbourne should be taken into consideration along with the problems that such an allocation have brought to the local community and indeed the WCC.
* Once again the Greenbelt issue is providing problems and requiring a district wide requirement to be shoe-horned into the small area south of Warwick/Leamington. Again this requires a more realistic and imaginative approach to how WDC deals with Greenbelt policies.