4. What are the Issues?

Only sites which could be considered for other more conventional forms of development should be considered for G&T allocation.

This acknowledgement of the issue is welcomed

It would be great to be able to offer sessional youth work support to the young people on the sites whether legal or illegal. The Warwickshire Association of Youth Clubs would be interested in offering such support if funded by say the Community Levy

Dear Sir/Madam,

Last evening, Mon. 22nd July, I attended a meeting at Harbury Village Club re the above. I went because over the past week there has been a plethora of posters, letters and notices objecting to the proposed sites near Harbury on the Fosse Way, I have been horrified and saddened by the extent of the antagonism, vitriol and fear that this process has generated. One of the points made very strongly was the fact that Harbury residents had not been informed directly by the Warwick District Council of the planning proposals for these sites, also many people have had unfortunate experiences of contact with the travelling community and this seems to be raising the emotional stakes. I would add here that equally the travellers have had negative experiences from the settled community, they must feel like complete outcasts from society at times.

What I did not hear from anyone was that there had been consultations between any local people and the travelling community; any effort to find out what they would like; or any positive attempts at reconciliation between groups of people who are becoming more and more antagonistic towards each other. I hear that the police are afraid to go into any of their sites - why? Is this true and if it is, it is quite unacceptable.

All I know is that every conflict in the world starts like this, protecting your own self interest, fear of difference and the unknown and pointing the finger of blame. Travellers have been rejected and villified and permanent residents feel their way of life and property are threatened. Attitudes cannot change overnight but I really feel that the grassroots problem is not being addressed and some rethinking needs to take place.

Firstly find out exactly what the travellers want and how they would support it. Are they willing to meet members of the settled communities to talk and try to work out a constructive way forward. Education for the children is a desperate issue, does each site need an education unit, a health input, i.e. how would each site be serviced? Could there be simple events on neutral ground where say women from each community could be invited to share even a cup of tea and a chat.

Maybe I sound naive but we are all human beings and prejudices have to be addressed and somehow overcome or the situation will never improve.

I would value any meaningful comments on the above.

I am writing to protest about the above proposed sites. The infrastructure around Bishops Tachbrook cannot possibly cope with these types of developments. We have already had our fair share of development with Warwick Gates and all the extra strain on local facilities that brings.

Bishops Tachbrook is a village, first and foremost. With the proposed new houses we will practically be joined up to Whitnash/Warwick Gates. I feel this will have an adverse effect on the quality of life in our village. The roads cannot cope with the extra traffic (nowadays most houses have a minimum of 2 cars each). Our hospital services will suffer with the extra demand, waiting lists will grow longer too. Pollution will rise and we have already seen a massive increase in this with the M40 development. Is there really a need for so many houses, I have seen and heard it disputed by many experts in the local area?

As for the gypsies. If they are travellers why do they want a permanent site, if their aim is to travel. It wouldn't be so bad if they left where they stayed tidy but it is plainly obvious to see when they stop (illegally) on Harbury Lane and on the site by the Hungry Horse pub at Warwick Gates that they leave mess, rubbish and general devastation behind them where they stay. The local school won't cope and even if it did having transient children joining the school will bring down standards in the classroom. There is a noticeable crime rate rise, especially in rural locations like Harbury when the gypsies are around. A permanent site or sites would mean our house insurance costs would rise too. And also I would feel less safe in my home, out walking my dog on my own and letting my children go down to the local park on their own.

The sites proposed for the gypsies are prime agricultural sites too, right next to main roads and in lovely big open fields. I do not think this is fair that people who do not pay taxes or for upkeep of any of their surroundings that they should be treated so royally. It would not be so easy for the hard working tax payer that I do know.

I would appreciate your comments on these points.

* Strong support for the retention of open spaces (Green Belt and Special Landscape Areas) Difficult to comment further without information regarding potential changes to green belt boundaries.
* Clarification of the area referred to as "Rowington" is still required. Reference is made to the settlement of Kingswood as "Lapworth" when in fact a large part of Kingswod is within Rowington Parish
* The data gathering exercise for the Rowington Parish Design Statement provides a strong evidence base of the need for small infill developments of residential units for the young and elderly alike, which would allow a balanced community to be maintained in the rural areas. This appears to have been largely ignored within the Development Strategy at this point.
* It seems that rather than spread the burden of new development across Warwick District, much of the proposed new housing is in the form of concentrated and large scale developments. As mentioned above, the proposals have ignored the needs of the small rural villages in favour of the big developers who are only interested in such large scale developments.

Community Infrastructure Levy Preliminary Draft Charging Schedule

* The overriding concern of the Parish Council is that any CIL is levied on a particular site and remains attached to that site area i.e. no levy should be consumed within a central "pot"
* Because CIL is intended to be mandatory, smaller developments such as those likely to occur in the rural settlements, may be unable to bear the cost of this levy and developers will not therefore be encouraged to come forward.

Sustainability Appraisal and Gypsy and Traveller Site Options

* Need further clarification on the definition of a "pitch" and how this is to be utilised i.e. single or multiple occupancy per pitch? Not clear what is meant by a "pitch".
* Clear guidelines on the numbers of pitches per site and a preference for permanent as opposed to itinerant occupancy. Permanent occupancy may encourage occupants to become part of the community and therefore develop a sense of inclusion and ultimately, responsibility.
* Will the proposed sites/occupiers incur rental charges etc? As in the case of council accommodation provided by WDC. We believe that the occupiers should be subject to rental and other charges and would like to know how such charges will be collected by WDC.
* How will these sites be administered i.e. will the sites be self managing or managed by
WDC? We are concerned that the sites will certainly need to incur costs associated with hygiene, waste disposal, school transport and maintenance alongside overall supervision/administration costs if they are to remain usable. These costs are running costs as opposed to capital infrastructure costs mentioned below.
* What are the likely costs of the provision of necessary infrastructure for these sites and how will such infrastructure be funded.
* Following the creation of approved sites, how will the settlement of travellers or gypsies of the type that are "unpredictable economic migrants" be handled in the event of their occupation of sites over and above the official sites provided?

Having reviewed the Council's proposals for a new Local Plan we have the following observations and objections.
Viz: It is likely that according to a recent study that the need for new housing in the district is less than 6000 rather than the grossly inflated figure of 12000 new homes as proposed by the Council. Such great numbers will require building on farmland and considerable infrastructure development - Fire Protection, Policing, Roads, power, water, sewers, transport,education, healthcare and sufficient work available to sustain such a proposed development.The district has many brownfield sites which should first be developed. Homes do not have to be single dwellings. Flats, of low skyline intrusion would surely meet the needs of many of the projected growth population.
Whilst we object to all of the proposals in the Whitnash/Harbury Lane/Gallows Hill areas we are particularly concerned of the area east of the railway line in Whitnash for this area is in the heart of the Whitnash - Harbury ridge valley, an area rarely visited at the moment by other than dog walkers. It is in fact an area of extreme beauty, quintessentially English. Rural England at it's best; a tranquil, housing free, area of productive farmland from Whitnash Church to Chesterton Windmill to Harbury and round to Radford. An area supporting considerable wildlife and at the time of writing a 'golden valley' full of ripening barley. The Valley provides not only food for us all but gives us an area of valuable air quality. Which is going to be needed even more so if we are to be surrounded by 12000 new houses.[have any councillors visited this area?]
Our specific objections include Fieldgate Lane -application W/13/0858 - 94 houses on a rural area that is already subject to flooding will cause roads,already congested to be overloaded. and a further demand on local and district services.
As far as 'travellers' sites are concerned the district is being held to ransom. We have all seen the devastation of sites visited by travellers and have had to contribute through local taxes to the enormous cost to the community of cleaning up after them. Why; the Council cannot even collect parking money when travellers park for 10 days or more on a pubic car park ( Myton Fields) yet I am expected to pay. If travellers want a permanent site they should be encouraged to do as the rest of the community, to buy a permanent house. But then they would be subject to all of the responsibilities of us other citizens.
We are shrinking Island with a finite land area, we cannot afford to waste it by concreting it over. We are the trustees of the earth as were our forebears before us, we have a responsibility to protect the earth and in this case Warwick District from the devastation that is being thrust upon us.
Please give close consideration to our objections outlined above.

Firstly we would like to express how disappointed we are by the 'consultation' methods used by WDC regarding the proposed local plan and Gypsy and Romany Traveller sites.

Hooking a flyer onto the handle of a wheelie bin is an inadequate way of passing information on to the public. Many had blown off in the wind, many were not even glanced at as people assumed they were more information about recycling.

There was one small paragraph in a local paper which is not even a free paper, so unless people purchase it, there was no chance is seeing the information.

Considering Barford has a number of proposed sites, perhaps a consultation meeting could have been organised within our village rather than our residents having to organise one ourselves.

We would like to object to the following G and RT sites as follows based on the criteria used for locating suitable spaces. We have tried to use the WDC objection sheets, however it is not the easiest method to use when wanting to object to multiple sites.

Our objections are as follows.

All sites will have an impact on wildlife and environment. There are water voles in the area of site of sites 12 and 16 . Numbers are declining and they are under threat.

Site 5,6,9,10,12 and 16. Impact on local schools will be an issue. Barford St Peters is an already over subscribed SMALL village school. It has already been indicated in the local plan that more housing in the area will be built. The school will not cope with increase in numbers of pupils.
Also with a transient population this could affect attendance and impact on school's OFSTED results.

Site 6 and 9 have wild deer inhabiting land. This should be considered.

Sites 6 and 9 are very close to proposed building within local plan, road networks will struggle.
Sites 5,6,9, 12,16 and 20. Loss of farmland impacting on local rural businesses and employment

Site 5,6,9,10,12,15,16,17 18 and 20 - these areas are not close to local communities and do not allow ' peaceful and integrated co-existence with the local community'

Site 5,6,9,10,12,15,16,17,18 and 20 - access by vehicles will be difficult and dangerous. Potential safety issue.

Site 16 is not suitable due to it being a pond and not suitable for development

Site 12 and 16. Significant flood risk which has already been identified by Environment Agency in the past.

Sites 10 and 20. Historic landfill sites, not suitable for occupation.

Site 12 and 16. Very dangerous for pedestrians to access local facilities when crossing main road which has already been the site of fatal accidents.

Site 5,6,9, 10,12,15,16,17,18 and 20. Sites do not have access to local amenities such as doctors surgeries, schools etc. people would need to use a vehicle which adds more pressure to roads and impact on environment.


Site. We have a policy within our village for affordable housing, only people who have some links to the village are entitled to access the affordable housing stock. We do not understand how this can be completely ignored when allowing sites to be chosen. We fought very hard to remain in the village as we have had four generations living within Barford. It is unreasonable and unfair for this policy to be completely disregarded.

Please accept these objections as 2 separate people objecting, therefore each of above should be counted twice.

I have recently received a lot of inflammatory literature in the mail regarding the New Local Plan.

For the most part this literature seems in the sort of reactionary "change is bad" idiocy that typically stands in the way of progress.

I would like to take time to say that I am firmly in favour of these developments with several provisos:

1) I feel it is absolutely essential that additional primary schools are built (e.g. the ones in "Map 3: Sites South of Warwick and Whitnash")

2) ...and that an additional secondary school is built (again, see "Map 3: Sites South of Warwick and Whitnash" )

3) I also feel that there must be adequate provision for cycle paths throughout these new areas (i.e. children should be able to cycle around Leamington / Warwick area without having to go on main roads, especially to get to their schools)

4) there should be some commitment to providing good public transport links

5) I feel very strongly that there should be adequate leisure space for people who wish to engage in non-mainstream sports such as mountain biking, skateboarding etc.

(minor rant warning!) As someone who has been skateboarding for over 25 years, who has lived in Leamington for 16 years, and has travelled to many other council funded facilities in other areas of the country; I can confirm that Leamington / Warwick / Kenilworth have a shockingly bad history with Skateboard facilities. The existing facilities around here are a joke - the ones at St Nicks in Warwick in particular are more or less unusable. All it would take to fix this is to engage with someone who knows what they're doing (me for example!) and we could have had facilities that are twice as good as those we have for half the amount of public money that has so far been spent...

6) some provision should be provided to generate as much of the extra energy these homes will require as possible in ecologically friendly ways - i.e. wind farms, solar, etc. as opposed to nuclear or fossil fuel.

7) I'm sure I'm not alone in having mixed feelings about the issue of providing sites for gypsies / travellers from public funds. In the balance, I have no problem with public money paying for places for them to use as long as the arrangements in general benefit mainstream society at least as much as they benefit the people who will be using them.

For example - by use of the amenities they understand that they should behave in a considerate manner, not leave a mess, and so forth. Ideally they should also contribute some nominal small ground rent for the suites they use so that some of the costs of administering and upkeep of the sites can be covered.