BASE HEADER

Yes

ID sylw: 105961

Derbyniwyd: 18/02/2025

Ymatebydd: Rachel Walmsley

In addition I'd like to add to my previous concerns raised specifically regarding site 569 (land to south of Weston Under Wetherley) and would request that this site should be entirely removed from consideration within the local plan:
• From what I've read, the assessment considerably underestimates how unsuitable this site is for development. For example, the flood risk is not limited to a boundary of the site as considerable areas beyond this have flooded twice this year already making the whole site unsuitable for development.
• The proforma simply states this is "greenbelt" and so fails to take into account that this is a particularly important area of greenbelt separating Leamington from merging into the villages of Weston and Hunningham. Any development in this area would also significantly diminish the greenspace between Leamington and Coventry and so leave the area subject to Coventry's Sprawl.
• The assessment also fails to take into account the considerable infrastructure limitations of the site. Access to the site from Weston under Wetherley is via an exceptionally narrow and prolonged strip of land. The East of the site is limited by a river with the only viable bridge East being a single lane historic bridge into Hunningham which is unsuited for any large commercial vehicles (it has already been closed on a number of occasions in the past five years due to vehicles colliding with the bridge). To the North of the Site, the direct route to the A445 (which would be a major route to transport from this site), is also restricted to single lane traffic on Weston Road. Whilst there is a road to Leamington Spa via a future bridge over HS2 this does not include cycle lanes meaning it is only a narrow bridge with limited pedestrian capacity and no accessible footpath to Leamington. In effect therefore, not only would development on this site be entirely reliant on motorised vehicle transport, but those vehicles would be heavily constrained by pinch points to the North, East and West with no Southern route available.

Finally as noted previously, the Climate Emergency must not be used as justification to develop on greenbelt land. This is a weak and bizarre argument. Why do something to make it worse? There are other ways of mitigating against the climate emergency without developing on greenbelt land, which itself is truly harmful.