BASE HEADER

I believe the plan to be unsound because the amendments to the previous draft plan have added land to the north of Milverton to meet Coventry City Council's housing need. This would destroy high quality green belt land unnecessarily when there are much more appropriate sites nearer to Coventry. Housing people from Coventry here will simply add commuting and increase what are already very congested road locally.

I strongly believe that the 'exceptional circumstances' required by the National Planning Policy Framework to remove the green belt land to the north of Milverton have not been demonstrated by Warwick District Council.
People who want to live and work in Coventry will not want to buy houses on land to the north of Milverton that will be much more expensive than sites on the edge of Coventry and therefore not be affordable and thus this development proposal will not support Coventry's housing need which could be met much better locally. Instead of spreading outwards in low rise housing why can't the City build up like London to meet housing need?

Precedence for releasing land from the Green Belt requires the "value" of potential sites to the green belt to be taken into account and those with the least value to be removed from the green belt first. Alongside Coventry City Council Warwick District Council has assessed sites on the edge of Coventry as being of lower green belt value. There are therefore suitable sites with a lower green belt value that should be used in preference to the land north of Milverton and on this basis the plan is not sound.

Not only would the plan get rid of productive farm land it will also permanently destroy with long established wild life habitat. Our development (Vernon Close) backs onto the fields and amongst other wildlife we have owls and woodpeckers in our communal gardens. This will destroy their habitats.

We walk frequently in the greenbelt using the footpaths. These are extremely well used by local people for leisure purposes such as dog walking, running and walking and the plan will destroy an area which is highly valued by local residents and schools who use the area for nature studies.

The plan will also cause the green area between Leamington and Kenilworth to be reduced and set a precedent that risks the two towns joining instead of having a distinctive green belt area that separates them.