The Exceptional circumstances required by the National Planning Framework to remove the land north of Milverton from the green belt have not been demonstrated by WDC.
The proposed development is to support Coventry City Council's housing need. There are sustainable sites closer to Coventry that should be use in preference to the land north of Milverton to reduce unnecessary commuting, inevitable congestion and further road construction.
In practise it is likely that people who want to live and work in Coventry will not want to buy houses in Leamington and therefore this proposal will not support Coventry's housing need.
Precedence for releasing land from the Green Belt requires the value of potential sites 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. There are sites with a lower green belt value that should be used in preference to the land north of Milverton.
The green "lung" between Leamington and Kenilworth will be reduced to less than 1.5 miles.
The picturesque northern gateway to the historic regency town of Leamington Spa will be destroyed.
Highly productive farming land will be lost, together with long-established wildlife habitat.
Leamington and other local residents will be deprived of an area which is highly valued and sustainable for walking, running, bird-watching and also used by local schools for educational walks.
The proposed park and ride scheme is unsustainable because:
* There will be no dedicated buses
* The site is too close to Leamington to encourage people to use it
* There is already plenty of parking in Leamington for shoppers and therefore they are unlikely to use it. As a past resident of Oxford, this is the only scheme I am aware of that works, because there is very limited parking in Oxford and what parking exists is very expensive. In addition, dedicated buses run every few minutes.
* There are already a lot of car parks in this area of the green belt with impervious surfaces, which reduce the ability to absorb rainfall and therefore contribute to flooding.
A railway station is unviable because the railway line is a deep cutting in Old Milverton making construction impractical