Testun llawn:
Selection of the H50, land East of Cubbington, is an ill-considered decision, which has failed to take into account a number of crucial points, which make this plan not sound or legally compliant.
1. The area allocated is arable, greenbelt land and National Planning Policy dictates that Green belt boundaries should only be altered in exceptional circumstances. Building Houses on the site of H50, does not constitute exceptional circumstances when there are far more suitable alternatives in the Cubbington area. With a growing population, how will building on arable land help? Yes, there will be increased housing but insufficient locally grown produce to feed the population. Resulting in food costs spiraling upwards as it now has to be imported with the risks and over reliance issues this poses.
2. The H50 site currently soaks up a lot of rain water, but even then there is run off into the brook at the bottom of the field during extreme weather events. This water then runs through the village. In 2007 due to the amount of water runoff, the lower portion of Cubbington was flooded with many residents seeing their homes under water. Even if the developers implemented improved drainage throughout the lower Cubbington village, building on the H50 land will still leave the risk of flooding to parts of the village to be unacceptably high.
3. The Local plan has completely failed to take into account the local infrastructure and the impact of building 195 houses (95 on H50) will have. Has it been determined that the two primary schools in Cubbington Village, have the capacity to accommodate the children from the 195 new homes? Has the impact on North Leamington School been assessed, for not only the impact of the new homes in Cubbington but in the wider Leamington area? The Cubbington and Lillington area is served by the Cubbington Surgery on Rugby Road, a surgery that today is oversubscribed. What provisions have been made to enlarge or provide new local surgeries? On the bigger scheme, what plans are in place to enlarge Warwick Hospital to accommodate and provide a good level of service to all the residents who live within the Warwick DC area who require both in and outpatient services? The Local Plan has not considered the impact on congestion and car parking within the Warwick DC area. Today at weekends it can be difficult to find parking in Leamington Town Centre and traffic can be very slow due to the volume. Building 1000s of new homes will only make this worse, if new carparks and road improvement are not provided. The proposed Local Plan has failed to consider these crucial and critical infrastructure issues.
4. The site of H50 and the land east of Cubbington is of particular beauty and home to a multitude of wildlife. On any given day in this area, several varieties of birds of prey like kestrels and merlins and woodland birds like woodpeckers and pheasants can be seen, plus a wide variety of garden birds. Building on H50 will not only destroy an area of great beauty, which future generations will be unable to enjoy, it will also have a detrimental impact on the local wildlife.
In summary the selection of the H50 land is wrong, is not suitable for the purpose of building houses. Furthermore I doubt that the people responsible for choosing this site even visited it before slecting it. From reviewing the plan it clearly looks like the work of someone, sat at a desk, with a map and a set of crayons. If they had visited the site they would have seen many of the issues faced.
The fact the parish Council was not consulted on H50 is incomprehensible and inexcusable. Those involved in preparing the plan must be held accountable for this.