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.
The proposed development is to support Coventry City Council's housing need. There are sustainable sites closer to Coventry that should be used preference to the land north of Milverton to reduce unnecessary commuting, inevitable congestion and further road construction.
In practice it is unlikely that people who want to live and work in Coventry will buy houses inland north of Milverton and therefore this development proposal will not support Coventry's housing need.
Precedents for releasing land from the Green Bellt 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.
The 'green lung' between Leamington and Kenilworth will be reduced to less than one and a half 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 wildlife 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 so users will have to time visits to coincide with the bus timetable
the site is too close to Leamington
it will be better if the site was focussed on the A46 roundabout with the A452 which could form part of the Thickthorn development and provide for Leamington, Warwick, Kenilworth, Warwick Uni and potentially Coventry
Much of the traffic using the A452 crosses to the South of Leamington where there are 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
There are already a lot of car parks in this area of Green Belt with impervious surfaces all of which reduce the area's ability to absorb rainfall and contribute to flooding
A railway station is unviable because the railway line is in a deep cutting in old Milverton making construction impractical