In response to the Local Plan revised Development Strategy, I have to object on a variety of grounds.

1. The listing of Kingswood(Lapworth) as a Primary Service Village is based on a number of factors with which I disagree.
There is no regular bus service to and from the village - we have a single bus a day going only to Solihull.
The Post Office is under threat of closure as it is sited in a Wine Merchants which is for sale at the moment.
The Village Shop is very small with no parking, and no room for expansion.
There is no Church of England place of worship in Kingswood - the primary denomination of most residents. The
Lees Chapel caters for only a small proportion of the residents.
The nearest town or large village for all shopping is Knowle, 5 miles distant, and with no rail station, making it in all
practical terms inaccessible from Kingswood other than by car.
There are no recreation or open spaces other than the canal tow paths and the field footpaths - these are both quite
clearly unsuitable for all games and sports, and for children to play.
The village Junior and Infant School is already at its full capacity.
For all these reasons the correct category for Kingswood(Lapworth) would seem to me to be that of a Secondary
Service Village.

2. Kingswood has at present 381 dwellings. An additional 100 - 150 dwellings would mean an increase of nearly 40%
in a green belt area, completely altering the rural nature of Kingswood. This area has poor services which are already
stretched. Overhead power lines cause problems, there is no mains gas supply, and poor drainage causes flooding
every time there is heavy rain.

3. Given the rural nature of the village, and Kingswood in particular, it would be preferable for any development to be in
small blocks of no more that 5 - 10 houses, on sites spread all across the parish, and phased to spread the work over
the whole of the plan period. Any large scale development would be totally out of keeping with the village. "Windfall"
sites should be included in the total number of dwellings permitted. It appears that all the sites so far indicated are
clustered in the Kingswood area, which would unbalance the village.

4. The only need within the village is for reasonably priced houses for first-time buyers and young families. At present the
young people growing up in the village cannot afford to buy a house here. There are already quite a number of larger
houses for sale in the village as a whole, which are proving very hard to sell in the current economic climate. A small
number of houses that are affordable, or shared-ownership, would be of help, but too many would be unneccessary.

I believe that far more in-depth investigation and consultation with the residents is required before any plan can be decided upon.