Object
Proposed Modifications January 2016
Representation ID: 70056
Received: 22/04/2016
Respondent: CPRE WARWICKSHIRE
Legally compliant? Yes
Sound? No
Duty to co-operate? Not specified
Green belt release in this location is not justified. Need for housing will rarely be sufficient to constitute the very special circumstances required for inappropriate development in the Green Belt. The DCLG Policy Statement of October 2014 states, 'The local planning authority should prepare a strategic housing land availability assessment to establish realistic assumptions about the availability....of land...and take account of any constraints such as green belt which indicate that development should be restricted and which may restrain the ability of an authority to meet its need'. Development in this location would be a long swathe of urban development which would close the Green Belt gap which currently exists between the built-up area of the town and the A46. On rising ground, the development would be very visible from countryside to the east near Ashow and the National Agricultural Centre. It would undermine the rural character of the Avon Valley and the setting of the Gade I Stoneleigh Abbey and its eighteenth-century landscaped park (registered by English Heritage) by extending Kenilworth's urban area up to the A46, which is near to the western boundary of the parkland. This would halve the distance between the urban area and the parkland to no more than 250 metres.
See attached