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Representation ID: 67460

Received: 12/12/2014

Respondent: Warwickshire County Council [Physical Assets Business Unit]

Agent: Savills

Supports deletion of employment allocation from Land North of Gallows Hill, Warwick and the addition of an 11.7ha employment allocation on Land at Stratford Road, Warwick. Previous representations and supporting market assessment produced by Savills did not dispute the need for employment land within Warwick District over the next Plan period, but they did highlight that Warwick District would see good demand from local advanced manufacturing companies and that there are few existing sites available for industrial and distribution uses which have the necessary good accessibility to the local and national road network and are adjacent to compatible uses, in accordance with the 'market signals'. The previous representations also objected to the lack of an assessment of potential alternative employment sites, the impact on the Grade II Listed Heathcote Hill Farmhouse, the difficulties in physically linking any employment development on the Land North of Gallows Hill to the adjacent Technology Park and the impact of such uses on the wider adjoining proposed residential uses. As such the employment allocation was not considered to be deliverable. The Coventry and Warwickshire Strategic Employment Land Study does not overcome the lack of justification for employment allocation E1. Land at Stratford Road already benefits from normal services, previous employment use, vehicular access by means of an existing roundabout, good access to the A46 and Junction 15 of the M40, as well as existing bus and cycle routes, and which would not require major infrastructure to make it developable in the short term, would take account of both market and economic signals (as required by NPPF paragraph 158). The analysis demonstrates that a suitable and indeed preferable site to the WCC Land North of Gallows Hill exists, which can overcome the delivery, master planning and ownership constraints to employment development associated with the WCC Land North of Gallows Hill site. it would appear to be chronologically logical to give the replacement employment allocation at Stratford Road the allocation reference 'E1' rather than the proposed reference 'E4' to reflect the intention of PMA1 to delete the previous allocation references E1 and E3