Support

Village Housing Options and Settlement Boundaries

Representation ID: 61758

Received: 19/01/2014

Respondent: Mr Anthony King

Representation Summary:

-Village boundaries should be removed from the dated Green Belt policy.

Full text:

I would like to comment in general on the above.

It would seem to be a good idea to spread the housing requirement over the next 15 - 17 years for the Warwick District in as equitable way as possible. I therefore support planning for growth in our villages and that the mix of houses should include sufficient affordable housing.

However, why restrict it to only the 10 Primary and Secondary Villages. Examine the case of say the next 10 village options and add them to the process. In the plan Village development is scheduled to deliver 1000 dwellings ( 15.1% of the total .) Looking at table 2. Villages and Number of Dwellings - if we take the upper figure shown for the Primary and Secondry Villages we are looking at 1200 dwellings not 1000. If you looked for building opportunities in the next 10 villages surely a further 300 houses could be added to the total bringing it to 1500 dwellings raising the village contribution to 22.6% of the overall requirement. Housing in the smaller villages should help encourage the support facilities and services for these rural areas.

With regard to the village boundaries I do believe they should be removed from the dated green belt areas which formed part of the green belt created to prevent Birmingham expanding into the northern areas of Warwick and Leamington, and have new clear settlement boundaries established as should those villages in non green belt areas particularly to the south of Warwick.
Turning to the allocation of housing shown under 2.14 Under RDS4 of the revised Development Strategy, we see that:

Brownfield sites are to yield 380 dwellings ( 5.7% of overall requirement)
Sites on the edge of Warwick, Leamington and Witnash - 4550 dwellings( 68.6%)
Sites on the edge of Kenilworth - 700 dwellings ( 10.6% )
Village development - 1000 dwellings ( 15.1% )
At the latest count Warwick had a population of 30,114 and Kenilworth 22,413. It seems crazy that Kenilworth can get away with such a low figure. It should be taking close on 2500 dwellings. This is because of political manoeuvring by Councillors using the dated green belt to protect their wards.

Come on we are all in this together, let us have a fair distribution of housing throughout the area. This would help in solving the traffic and pollution problem that will result from all the proposed development south of Warwick.