Testun llawn:
1 - Need
These houses clearly do not meet a current local demand but that of Coventry overspill. They would be better suited further to the north along the A46. It remains disappointing that WDC has not sought to properly review the Greenbelt boundary within the District in order to effectively plan the delivery of houses north of Warwick and Leamington Spa.
2 - Community Cohesion
Communities can only grow at a certain pace. Any faster and the special qualities that help to bind them start to break and strain. We were promised 100 or so additional houses in this plan period, which we accepted. This additional development so soon would have a tangible and adverse impact upon the cohesion of our community. We do not want to be another anonymous settlement (the way Wellesbourne has gone). Sure we need development, but limit the pace of delivery in villages to a sustainable level.
It would be a tragedy if the fruits of our fantastic community effort (the shop and the playing fields) were used as an excuse to deliver unsustainable further growth that would serve to harm that very same community.
3 -Traffic
As an unfortunate byproduct of highway improvements at Gallows Hill, Barford has become a route of choice to access Warwick Business Park. The traffic baseline seems to have substantially increased on Bridge Street, High Street and Church Street recently
The Gallows Hill traffic combined with a busy A429 means that it can take up to 10 minutes to get out of the village onto the bypass in the morning. Further houses will exacerbate the problem and without wishing to be over dramatic, I suspect at some stage impatience will cause another fatality or serious accident.
4 - Access and Design.
If these sites are to be imposed on us, then I urge careful and meaningful design. Taylor Wimpey together with WDC have proved incapable of delivering anything other than the lowest possible design standards on Nursery Meadows. In a village characterised by red brick walls, WDC and Taylor Wimpey felt that it was appropriate in the Conservation Area to deliver the primary access road sandwiched between a derelict post and rail fence and a close board fence with a couple hanging baskets nailed to it!. In the future when the fence has been partly replaced and stained various colours (and the hanging baskets have long since rusted away), it will look like a slum. Add to this the fact that the main axis of the approach road is terminated by the blank rear wall of a double garage. It really is awful. Please don't let these lowest possible standards carry on to "Phase 2".
Area H48 is tucked away behind properties along Wellesbourne Road. It would be easy for it to become yet another isolated enclave of development remote from its access to Wellesbourne Road. I urge any proposals to include meaningful green infrastructure including linked green spaces and paths / cycleways that form part of a useful and interesting network around the village. The new development should be "knitted in" to the existing social and built fabric and not isolated from it.