Do you support or object to the development of Glebe Farm, Cubbington?

Keep Cubbington a village.

I object most strongly.

This development will cause more traffic, accidents and noise on the Cubbington Road and Parklands Avenue. It will devalue the surrounding houses. There are many people living in the bungalows down Parklands Avenue. The surrounding countryside and wild animals and bird life will be affected. There will be constant building in progress, noise and dust for many months.

Building on this site will destroy village life; it will just be a sprawl of houses. Wildlife will suffer, badgers, great crested newts, these are protected. Flooding will be made worse because of the clay sub soil and the antiquated sewer system that cannot manage now. The schools and the doctors will be overloaded. The congestion in the village and surrounding roads will be made worse. The narrow roads cannot take the strain of more traffic. It will be more dangerous for the children who go to school in the village and especially those who go to Our Lady of St. Teresa's.

The local road infrastructure isn't good even now and the tributary roads into the proposed development will completely clog the existing system. Windmill Hill roundabout is already a bottle neck and with the adjacent school, this proposal seriously risks accidents - to children especially. The exit from Parklands Avenue will be just as bad and one can only imagine the traffic queues into town in the morning. Cubbington village has suffered recent flooding - no risk assessment has been carried out to determine how this development could affect this re-occurring but it can only make it much more likely. Education facilities in Cubbington would be put under huge stress making the likelihood of further development for schooling a necessity. The land in question links to Newbold Comyn and is used by many walkers, runners, mountain bikers & pleasure seekers - that facility would disappear with this housing development along with the flora, fauna and wildlife. This alone is worth preserving for the enjoyment of current and future Leamington residents. Green space with aspects like this is surely what the local council should be striving to preserve.

We object to the proposed development for the following reasons:

It would encroach on to designated Green Belt land. It would result in the loss of good agricultural land. There are other sites in the district not designated as green belt that are more suitable for new housing.

The existing open space between Lillington and Cubbington village would be largely lost. The space should be protected to prevent urban sprawl and maintain the separate identity of Cubbington.

The proposed access points to the site would overload the existing road infrastructure. These roads were built as estate roads and are not suitable for through traffic.

The increased local traffic generated from the proposed estate would put extra pressure on the local arterial roads. There is the likelihood of increased delays/ collisions at key junctions such as Parklands Avenue/ Cubbington roads.

There would be a significant increase in cross town traffics and in local congestions in Cubbington/ Lillington as a result. Food shopping and employment opportunities are mainly to the south of the town. Local services (doctor's surgeries/ schools) would be severely strained.

The area us green land that is tilled every year. I know because I almost back onto it. That means crops will not be able to be grown if it is developed.

It is a very steep site. Unsuitable, I would have thought, for diggers and construction machinery. Possibly dangerous.

Houses were built on the land opposite us and it took well over a year to sell them. There is no industry or jobs around here for the owners of the houses to work. This is a very residential area, the houses may not sell.

There are no/ few shopping facilities for this site. There are no major supermarkets for miles.

The green belt must be protected to prevent unrestricted sprawl.

The infrastructure of the area is inadequate to prevent flooding at present so development of this nature increases the risk.

The roads, pavements and cycle ways are inadequate at presents and insufficient to support this development.

A major increase in the social services would be required.

Unique scenery from my viewpoint, superb views from the flat where I live. Picturesque landscape would be spoilt and would cause traffic problems for some residents.

I understand that the Council is obliged by law to consider the bid by a charitable Trust to have changed the status of the land currently separating Cubbington Village and Lillington to allow for the building of 200 homes. This would appear to be an opportunistic bid to increased the value of the land in such a way as to benefit the Trust in their wish to sell it to developers.

There are a number of issues in relation to this project that need to be addressed.

Firstly, if agreed, the proposed houses will destroy the 'village' identity of Cubbington, making it effectively just another district within the Leamington conurbation. I understand that this is of major concern to the Cubbington Parish Council, which is firmly opposed to the proposal.

Secondly, the whole site is underpinned by impermeable clay and the Severn Trent Water Authority has already expressed concern about the future of water run-off. The Council will recall that in very recent times, Cubbington village suffered flooding, a situation that will be exacerbated should the current protection provided by the adjacent fields be removed. Allied to this concern is the question of sewage disposal for those who will live in the new settlement.

Thirdly, there is question of the provision that will be needed to cope with additional traffic if the houses are built. It is quite probably that each household will own at least one car. Currently, the roads in North Leamington are congested by traffic entering and leaving Leamington. Local road junctions are already under extreme pressure and there have been a series of accidents at the two main junctions. In addition, the road through Cubbington is currently used as a rat run by those wishing to bypass Leamington's hold-ups by accessing the Trading Estates south of the River Leam via Cubbington and Radford Semele.

In as far as access to the proposed development is concerned, it is self evident that the three tiny cul-de-sacs earmarked for access via Parklands are too small to cope with access to a major housing estate, and consideration will need to be given to how access could be improved.

Fourthly, there is the question of addition educational facilities. It is quite possible that those choosing to live on the new development would have children of school age. Local schools are already full, so consideration would have to be given either to increasing the capacity at the existing schools or to building something new at great expense.

Fifth comes the question of shopping and employment. Much of Leamington's shopping is sited south of the River Leam, as are many of the town's employment opportunities. Adding another 200 families in North Leamington will exacerbate the volume of traffic forced to navigate through the town, making already congested situation worse.

I understand that pressures have been applied by Central Government to ensure that Leamington plays its part in housing and caring for an increasing population, and that our council is bound by law to consider its options. In my view, the proposal to build a new estate on the Northern edge of the town is, for the reasons outlined above, self-evidently a non starter.

I cannot believe that houses could be built on such a hilly, unsuitable piece of land, and I agree with all the points made. Especially the joining of Cubbington to Lillington, and possible worse flooding in Cubbington.

It will spoil the countryside, and the traffic will be heavy.

Green belt must remain apart from obvious possibility of flooding by building anymore houses. Cubbington still remains a high risk area of flooding.

Traffic congestion at rush hour is horrendous.

New schools, medical facilities etc would be needed.

No mention of the plight of our wildlife if the proposal is successful.

Cubbington has a history reaching back to the Domesday Book. It has a beautiful parish church and many ancient preserved cottages. All Cubbingtonians feel proud of their village and I am sure they will agree with my points of view. We do not need to be absorbed into proposed urban sprawl.

We strongly object to this development. Cubbington has enough problems with traffic. There are also problems with drainage. If this development goes ahead we will have many more problems. We do not want all the green belt to disappear from this village and we think that a development of this scale will ruin the village.

The reason I object to this expansion of housing is the flood problems in the village this still ongoing and these houses being put onto the sewage system of the village will cause more flooding. Having worked for Severn Trent for 33 years on sewage I know the pumping station by Thwaites will not take any more flow due to the twin mains unable to take any more flow. Please check with Severn Trent.

Increase flood risk as Ladycroft has been flooded within the last 3 years, this proposal will make matters worse.

Connect Cubbington to Lillington.

Remove Greenbelt Land

Devalue Property

Local services already stretched

Wildlife - especially badgers

Local employment limited

Road structure not suited to increase traffic.

My concerns are increased flood risk as I have already been flooded 3 years ago, as we will then have hard surfaces coming down from Lillington.

The road structure for increase traffic is not suitable.

It will remove green belt land and will affect the wildlife.

It will also devalue the property and affect local services.

The development proposed will cause further flooding problems in Cubbington by covering fields with housing, roads, pavements etc. Lie of the land slopes down towards the village. Cubbington merged with Lillington and will no longer be the picturesque village it is now. Traffic flow will be horrendous with rat runs from Parklands to Offchurch Road. The loss of walks around this lovely countryside will all but disappear as will wildlife, rabbits, badgers and their setts.

We already suffer from flooding at the corner of Offchurch Road and Windmill Hill when it rains heavily. It comes into houses and front and back gardens. If all the fields opposite are covered with concrete and tarmac we think it will increase the problem.

With badger setts in some of the fields it will ruin the wildlife by building everywhere, and the loss of well used paths.

Offchurch Road is very busy during morning and evening rush hours so having traffic entering and exiting the site would cause a problem in our opinion.

We object most strongly with regard to the traffic and water that wil run ofg the fields causing more flooding. Cubbington is a village and we wish to remain so. Plus all the wildlife that will be disturbed.

48 homes in the older part of the village were flooded in 2007 when the drainage was proved to be inadequate. Nothing has been done to improve the situation since.

To pour concrete over this large area will cause the 'sponge effect' to be negated, and will increase the surface water runoff, both in volume and speed.

Old Cubbington is in a bowl and the area under consideration forms an important part of the catchment. Water runs from the fields at the farm gate/ footpath opposite Queen Street across the road now as a result of runoff. The overflow of the culverted stream on Windmill Hill also needs to be taken into account.

Adequate drainage i.e. 3 ft diameter pipes will be needed to transport water directly into the River Leam downstream of the Factory site. The same sized pipes should be installed in the roads in New Street, Penns Close, Knightly Close, Ladycroft, Price Road and Offchurch Road and connected to Leam downstream of the factory. The pumping station will also need to be upgraded. Bearing in mind its previous failure perhaps 5 times its present capacity might be satisfactory.

The entire site is not appropriate for full development. The eastern part adjacent to Lillington is on a ridge. This forms the natural boundary to any extension of Lillington. However, a western extension to Cubbington is possible and will present minimal visual impact owing to the topography. The north-eastern 13.5ha would be suitable for up to 500 homes as shown below but with corrected area and number of homes. Of course, any such development would be expected to provide flood alleviation measures as part of the S106 agreement.

I object to the encroachment of the urban sprawl into the countryside, the loss of the attractive landscape and well established footpaths.

The unacceptable impact to local wildlife and the light pollution obliterating the night sky

Cubbington village will be swallowed up losing its special character

The surrounding road infrastructure is not suitable to support the significant increase in traffic. Local junctions already become congested during peak times; these will become overwhelmed and increase the risk of accident.

The surrounding clay soil is impervious making the site prone to flooding, Cubbington already experiences serious flooding. The areas around Parklands Av and Oakridge Rd also flood, albeit to a lesser extent, but if building goes ahead this could change and subject the area to more serious and frequent flooding.

The local schools and doctor surgeries will be unable to cope

I remain of the opinion that the need for such large housing development in this area as imposed by Government remains unproven but feel that the following considerations should be imposed on all proposals.
1. No green belt land should be considered until all Brownfield sites have been fully developed. Look at the history of Developers in Coventry where a Brownfield site is started with a large number of homes proposed but once the developer has planning permission the numbers of dwellings are reduced and they move to the next site.
2. Numbers of houses on a site should be restricted to 100 homes to ensure that no single area is 'swamped' by a development and loses its existing identity.
3. Any of these additional proposals are more acceptable than the initial plan to build in excess of 3,500 houses on Kings Hill. Congratulations to a Council that can admit when a proposal is seriously flawed.
4. The main objective for any housing plans should be to encourage local employment and minimise the need to commute. Therefore WDC should consider small developments that are close to existing developments within its own area to meet this need. Sites that are close to Warwick, Leamington and Stratford should take priority for these reasons. Development closer to Coventry would only result in permanently 'joining' the two areas and resulting in the long term of a new Coventry and Warwickshire District Council?
5. The area around Warwick Parkway has never appeared as a consideration yet this has excellent access to a rail and road network. I understand that a reason given was the presence of Great Crested Newts? If this is the reason then King's Hill with its large number of ponds, Badger sets and ancient woodlands should not be under consideration?

I very much object to the development of Glebe Farm Cubbington. This is an area of outstanding natural beauty and to turn it into another faceless development would be a great shame. In addition it would cause the following problems:
* Traffic congestion would be disastrous. Cubbington Road/Rugby Road are already very busy and grind to a halt if a vehicle blocks a lane. There isn't space to dual carriage this road so additional homes would make this worse. In addition the queues at the mini roundabout at the top of Windmill hill are very long during evening rush hour so another few thousand cars will create gridlock
* Cubbington is a village with a village community and this development would urbanise the whole area and it will lose its identity which would be a great shame.
* Lower Cubbington regularly suffers from flooding so concreting over a large chunk of the local landscape will surely worsen the regularity and severity of the flooding
* The fields are full of wildlife (we regularly see bats at dusk out the back of our house as well as many different birds and butterflies) and contain public footpaths which are well used. These would be lost to everyone if the development went ahead.
* We were under the impression that some of the proposed development site was green belt land? Surely there are brownfield sites or run down urban areas that should be redeveloped prior to building on supposedly protected land?
* Lastly the infrastructure just cannot handle it. Emergency vehicles could be delayed due to the excess traffic, local schools are already close to full occupancy and there has been no mention of additional amenities (doctors, dentists etc) which would mean existing services would be under more pressure than they are already.

I whole heartedly object to the Glebe Farm development for many important reasons:
* There would be a huge problem with traffic congestion. Rugby Road/Cubbington Road is already a busy road, (where there have been several fatal accidents) and the current traffic hotspots would be made significantly worse - namely the mini roundabout at the top of Windmill Lane and the traffic lights on Cubbington Road at the junction of Telford Avenue and Parklands. There is very little that can be done to alter these roads to improve this congestion, so the local residents and others who use this road on a daily basis will suffer.
* Heavy traffic that will inevitably have to traverse across town to reach retailers and employment.
* Cubbington suffers from a severe flooding problem, especially those at the bottom of Windmill Hill. This would be made worse by a large housing development and due to the heavy clay subsoil, there is very little that could be done to prevent it worsening.
* I feel very strongly indeed that Greenbelt areas should remain green spaces. I appreciate that there must be new housing to be built in order to accommodate our growing population, however, the original preferred sites as previously proposed by the council will accommodate these houses. As these areas of land are not Greenbelt, they must be given priority - Greenbelt land should not be considered when there are brownfield and Greenfield sites on offer.
* I also feel extremely strongly that Cubbington should remain a village. The new development will link Cubbington to Lillington and it would loose its village community. If anything has come out of this consultation, it has proved just how strong a village community we are and we feel very proud of our village and our historical roots.
* Wildlife in the land would be completely destroyed. We have seen a heron in our tree in our garden and often see bats at dusk and many different species of birds. It is not only local people who enjoy walking on the footpaths in the fields, people come from miles around to walk and enjoy the landscape and nature.

I support this development (providing it is not green belt) as it would mean Warwickshire homes for Warwickshire people and not use already inadequate Coventry services. It would maintain the clear boundary between the two distinctly different communities.

* Access to the proposed development is at present non-existent and would surely create huge safety issues both on narrow closes of Parklands Avenue and through The Crest and Mason Avenue, but also with increased traffic on Cubbington Road and the junctions from this. Traffic is already heavy at peak times and the new Tesco store has increased traffic at the junction at Crown Way. It appears likely that any further development of the roads would lead to existing roads being used as a cut through for traffic to Leamington again leading to safety problems on roads not designed for heavy traffic. Speed humps have already been put in to curb use and speed surely they cannot take more cars.
* Would Cubbington lose its village status with all these extra houses?
* The wildlife and birds would clearly lose their habitats, the badgers' setts and flying area for the red kite in particular.
* The distance from Leamington and lack of facilities in Cubbington would make the area undesirable for many low cost housing residents leading to further pressure to develop into designated Green Belt Land. This development would then exacerbate any initial traffic/safety problems in the future.
* I wish to formally register my strongest objections to any consideration of having this area re-designated from its current planning designation of agricultural land

In my opinion Cubbington is the wrong location for development of this size for the following reasons:
* Traffic dissipation to and from the area:
The current road infrastructure would not be able to cope with such increase in traffic, all routes to and from this proposed site are class 4 ranked roads (30 mph maximum). Local residents and council have campaigned to have speed limits reduced throughout this area and would not welcome the introduction of higher speed roads in order to dissipate traffic to and from the area.
* Near to St. Teresa's school further methods of traffic calming should be introduced and speed should be further reduced to 20 mph within the vicinity of the school.
* Increased through traffic will exacerbate the problem of speeding traffic and danger to pedestrians in particular children and the elderly especially at peak times approaching local schools and on Rugby road.
* Access to M40 motorway, employment and main shopping areas are all on opposite side of town, which means travelling across Leamington town for these facilities etc.
* Slow moving, queueing and stationary traffic would significantly increase air (and noise) pollution with increased danger to local residents (particularly children's sensitive immune systems which are more vulnerable) of developing respiratory ailments asthma and illnesses such as heart disease and stroke. The air in the area is relatively clean compared to typical city and other areas of the country which are densely populated, and so suffer what we are thus far spared.
* Flooding
For as long has I have lived in Cubbington (30 + years) this has been a problem for parts of the village. Further development of the area will only exacerbate the problem resulting in an increased number of properties being affected.
General climate change is believed to be the cause of more winter snow, and rainfall during summer months with flash flooding more likely and more frequent and a greater number of homes becoming affected.
* Footpaths
Majority of villagers choose to live in Cubbington in order to enjoy the rural surroundings, able to take a walk without the need to drive a vehicle in order to escape town/city/urban area.
This proposed development would have a severe impact upon green-belt and wildlife in the area including our greatly valued footpaths and bridleways.
* Critical mass
Cubbington is nearing a point where any further development would be an erosion of village life and local community identity, communities like Cubbington should be preserved. A development of the proposed scale linking Leamington/Lillington and Cubbington would create an Urban sprawl which would be detrimental to the whole area and an irreversible loss to all.
* Policing
Crime rate and anti-social behavior for the area in my opinion remains relatively low in comparison, however I feel this would be compromised once this critical mass is exceeded. Government planned Core Strategy along with conflicting Government cuts will have a profound impact upon ppolice forces who already face having to reduce numbers of front line staff to meet efficiency savings targets at a time when crime levels are expected to rise amid the recession, raising fears of fewer officers on the streets not more which sadly would be required.

I believe that the current plans for any large scale housing development is miss judged. An
alternative would be the development of several sites of smaller numbers with a mix of properties.
The proposal to develop properties of all (mixed) types on a single site is a mistake. Rather it should be possible to develop smaller numbers with a more coherent spread of property types.