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Gwrthwynebu

ID sylw: 6945

Derbyniwyd: 25/09/2009

Ymatebydd: Bishops Tachbrook Parish Council

Land at Lower Heathcote Farm
The Parish Council objects to this location in the Preferred Option for the following reasons.
1. To achieve the target housing requirement of the RSS, it is unnecessary to develop this Grade 2 agricultural land because there are sufficient sites available on brownfield, lower grade green land and sites at the edge of the city of Coventry that are more appropriate and from which a choice can be made.
2. The District would lose a significant piece of high landscape quality Warwickshire countryside that is effectively much larger than the plan would suggest being one side of a valley that falls between 45 and 60ft (from 55m AOD to 75m) down to the historic Tach Brook that was part of the boundary that separated the Saxon Hwicce tribe from the Mercian tribe in north Warwickshire.
3. To build on one side of the valley would ruin the aspect from the other side. The plan drawing is deceptive as it does not show the nature of the land affected, which is part of the valley of the Tach Brook, an historic watercourse that feeds New Waters and thence the Avon in the woodland south of Warwick Castle. Consequently, the land south of Harbury Lane falls from about 70 to 75m above ordinance datum down to less than 55m at the brook level. This is a fall of between 15 and 20m (45 to 60ft) with, in places, a gradient of 1 in 12. The land then slopes back up to Bishop‟s Tachbrook to around 75m forming the 2 sides of a valley that compliment each other and form a unified landscape, with the brook itself meandering through it. Normally, the brook is about 3m wide with freshly flowing water arising from aquifers to the east.
4. For most of its length it is surrounded by mature trees, hedgerows and a variety of plants down to the waters edge, shaded by the tree canopy providing ideal habitats for many birds and mammals that are so important to the countryside. This includes some protected species including bats and probably water voles. Surprisingly, WDC say that ecological surveys have yet to be done. If housing is constructed so close to the brook, contamination of the watercourse is bound to occur, both during construction and from ongoing human habitation and the environment will undoubtedly be affected.
5. The WDC evidence includes a landscape report that describes the landscape quality of the proposed site as medium to high, but taking the valley as a whole, it is clearly the higher side of medium. The valley is a classic piece of gently
Bishop's Tachbrook Parish Council
Response to WDC Core Strategy Preferred Option
undulating rich farmland that Warwickshire is famous for and one of the reasons for the tourist trade that forms part of the core strategy of the district. Seen from the surrounding roads and footpaths, the views across the valley are such that it would be Municipal Vandalism to destroy it by covering the northern slope with housing, however high it‟s quality.
6. WDC does not appear to have had any regard for the evidence submitted to them by commissioned reports when considering this part of the preferred option but rather, appear to have selectively ignored evidence that they have acknowledged for adjacent sites around Bishops Tachbrook should not only prevent development there but also make it an area of restraint. This is a severe case of double standards.
7. It will destroy the Tach Brook Valley buffer between the town and village to dimensions that are too small to be effective. It would be particularly disastrous if the land is covered with factories and other employment land detritus as well as housing.
8. Until now, WDC has retained the land south of Harbury Lane as an essential buffer between Leamington / Whitnash and Bishop‟s Tachbrook by the use of Rural Area Policies in the Local Plan. For the same purpose, Woodside Farm was made an Area of Restraint in the local Plan to resist development pressures to the south of Whitnash. The distance between the village and town is only 1100m on the B4087 and 1500m between the Bishop‟s Tachbrook northern village boundary and the NW corner of Grove Farm on Harbury Lane. The published preferred option would reduce this distance to 800 & 650m respectively. This distance is too small to remain an effective buffer.
For these reasons, no part of site W07 should be lost to development as it is a prominent site and naturally beautiful. Any development of this site will lead to a loss of the identity of Bishop‟s Tachbrook as a rural community and destroy views and aspects visible from the few footpaths on the south side of the valley that form one of the limited number of recreational facilities of this village community.