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.
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.
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, so users will have to time visits to coincide with the bus timetable;
* 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;
* 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.
A railway station is unviable because the railway line is in a deep cutting in Old Milverton making construction impractical.