1. 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.
2. The proposed development is 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.
3. 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. Even if development at Old Milverton was acceptable as a sustainable location for development, there are sites with a lower Green Belt value that should be used in preference to the land north of Milverton. Just looking at a google map of Coventry, I estimated that probably up to 1/5th of Coventry is still undeveloped. Surely Coventry City Council should be looking to 'infill' these areas (which are surely of little environmental and no agricultural value) instead of offloading its housing problems onto other local areas?
4. The "green lung" between Leamington and Kenilworth will be reduced to less than 1 1/2 miles.
5. The picturesque northern gateway to the historic regency town of Royal Leamington Spa will be destroyed.
6. Highly productive farming land will be lost together with long established wild life habitat. Having known the farmer for several years and working in the industry I definitely know this to be true. The world has an impending food crisis. The worlds population is set to nearly double from 6 to 11 billion by 2050. We cannot feed the current world population now and we are not 'self sufficient' in food production in this country. We can ill afford to turn farmland over to housing
7. 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. We walked through the proposed development area on the afternoon of the 2nd April. During our 10min walk through the area we counted 28 people using the footpath! There must be hundreds, if not thousands of local residents who enjoy this beautiful area of greenbelt regularly who would think the same.
8. Surely the 3000? New homes that are being built on the southern edge of Leamington will satisfy the local housing market for the foreseeable future. They are much closer to the towns major employers as well, keeping traffic movements to a minimum.
9. 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.
10. The proposed park-and-ride scheme is unsustainable because:
* There will be no dedicated buses, so users will have to time visits to coincide with the bus timetable. In my opinion this would be a waste of time. The buses between Leamington and Kenilworth are usually 75% filled anyway. This plan would not IMO reduce the number of people coming from Kenilworth/Coventry by car. A much better solution would be to increase the number of buses running between these 3 places allowing residents a better option than driving to Leamington.
* The site is too close to Leamington. 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 crosses to the south of Leamington where there are the major employers. I doubt these people would be using Public transport since most of them work for a large, local car manufacturer and have been given company cars!
* Shoppers are unlikely to use the park and ride when there is plenty of parking in Leamington. I have never had a problem parking in Leamington on the numerous occasions I came to the town when I lived in Princethorpe, even after the council decided to restrict street parking in the area to the north of the town centre to residents only. If there really is perceived to be a problem with parking, then maybe these restriction should be lifted?
* 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.
* 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

11. A railway station is unviable because the railway line is in a deep cutting in Old Milverton making construction impractical