Baginton Parish Council wish to object to the submission by Sworders that land within the Parish of Baginton be approved for development within the scope of the proposed Core Strategy. Baginton has not been identified, by WDC, as a 'growth' village does not wish to be one.
Sworders application is confusing. They claim that it is a 527Ha site but in the WDC Alternative Site Consultation document the same site, site 6, is labelled as 397.53Ha area. Substantial areas of this land are either unsuitable or unavailable for development:
- North of Baginton Village are large areas of flood plain
- Sworders commitment to safeguard the character of Baginton village would preclude development
- Coventry Golf Course is a mature development
- Baginton Castle and the adjacent medieval village are of interest to English Heritage
- The site of the Old Baginton Hall is a potential development for a Brethren school
- The ancient fish ponds have been restored at the end of Church Road adjacent to Poole Cottages
- The airport and its associated safety zones consume a substantial area of land
- The Severn Trent lagoons are in use and it will take a long time to restore the land when their use is phased out.
- Church Road, and the associated land around it, is designated by WDC as a 'conservation area'
Taking the above elements out of the 'site' area does not leave any significant area of land and it is all designated 'Green Belt'. To propose such an enormous area for development without altering the 'character of the village' is not possible. We are rural and we want to stay that way; we are a small village in Warwickshire and we want to remain in Warwickshire.
In our view they have expanded the site to an extent necessary to ensure that previous criteria for rejection do not apply i.e. so that topography constraints, flood risks, ancient monuments etc no longer form too large a percentage of the site. To achieve this, they have included areas that cannot be development, such as the airport, golf course, the airport safety zone and the village.