The EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES required by the National Planning Policy Framework to remove the land North of Milverton from the Green Belt have not been demonstrated by Warwick District Council.

Notwithstanding the dismissal of the contribution that greenbelt land makes to encouraging sustainable development, sect. DS10 proposes that non-greenbelt land will be considered in favour of Greenbelt land except where there are no suitable alternatives.

If the proposed development is genuinely to support Coventry City Council's housing need; there are sustainable sites closer to Coventry that should be used in preference to the land North of Milverton to reduce unnecessary commuting, inevitable congestion and further road construction. To ignore this fact is to further dismiss the contribution that a local plan has to make to sustainable development in terms of natural resources (land, recreation amenity, wildlife, flooding, farming productivity etc.)

In practice it is unlikely that people who want to live and work in Coventry will buy houses on land North of Milverton and therefore this development proposal will not support Coventry's housing need. It would inevitably risk significant increase in commuting journeys and time which flies in the face of the definition of sustainable development - "development that is conducted without depletion of natural resources, without detriment to the future of future generations"

Precedence for releasing land from the Green Belt requires the "value" of potential sites to the Green Belt to be taken into account and those with the least value to be removed from the Green Belt first. WDC, in cooperation with Coventry City Council, has assessed sites on the edge of Coventry as being of lower Green Belt value.

Development at Old Milverton is not acceptable as a sustainable location for development to meet Coventry's housing needs; there are sites with a lower Green Belt value that should be used in preference to the land north of Milverton which would cause less detriment to the planning goal of encouraging sustainable development.

The "green lung" between Leamington and Kenilworth will be reduced to less than 1 1/2 miles.

The picturesque northern gateway to the historic regency town of Royal Leamington Spa will be destroyed.

Highly productive farming land will be lost together with long established wild life habitat.

The residents of local towns will be deprived of an area which is highly valued and sustainable for walking, running, cycling, riding, bird watching and is also used by local schools for educational walks.

The proposed park-and-ride scheme is unsustainable because:

There will be no dedicated buses; it will effectively be a car park near some bus-routes.

The site is too close to Leamington to reduce traffic problems. It would be better if the site was focused on the A46 roundabout with the A452, which could form part of the Thickthorn development, and provide for Leamington, Warwick, Kenilworth, Warwick University and potentially Coventry.

 Much of the traffic using the A452 would cross to the south of Leamington where there are the major employers.

 Shoppers are unlikely to use the park and ride when there is plenty of parking in Leamington

 Oxford appears to have the only park and ride scheme in the country which really works and this is because there is such limited parking in Oxford city centre. the same circumstances do not exist in Leamington spa

 There are already a lot of car parks in this area of Green Belt with impervious surfaces all of which reduce the areas ability to absorb rainfall and contribute to flooding in the area.