Issue and Options 2023
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Results for Long Itchington Parish Council search
New searchThe protection of rural character and the need to ensure organic growth When taking forward the growth strategy for South Warwickshire we feel it is essential that the SWLP process ensures that the rural nature of many of the villages and communities within the plan area are protected. In 2016 when we commenced the process to develop our Neighbourhood Plan we conducted a detailed survey of all residents. The survey achieved a response rate of over 74% and is therefore highly representative of the views of our community. An overwhelming majority of residents considered that protecting the rural nature of our village was a key priority. This became the key theme underpinning our Neighbourhood Plan. As we have repeatedly made clear, we are not against housing development in our village per se and we recognise that some additional housing will be required during the life time of the SWLP. Our concern is to ensure that the rural nature of our community is protected and that housing growth is organic in nature. We suggest that the site allocation process stage of the SWLP can achieve this in two ways. Firstly, by ensuring that any development sites allocated to our village are limited in size, for example no more than 30 - 40 dwellings as an absolute maximum to be allocated to a single site. Secondly, by ensuring the development of any sites is phased over a longer period. We wish to avoid a repeat of the experience of 2016 – 2021 when over three hundred houses were constructed in just 5 years, one of the sites concerned containing over 150 houses. Over-rapid growth has a significant negative impact on a village community and we request that the SWLP site allocation process ensures that sites are therefore limited in size and brought “on stream” in a phased and controlled way over the lifetime of the plan period. This will help to protect the rural nature of our community and ensure any growth that does occur is more organic in nature. Overall Conclusion Long Itchington Parish Council is broadly supportive of the SWLP and believe the policies are well considered and appropriate. We recognise that this stage of the consultation process is to look at high level strategy and that the development of the plan should be policy driven rather than site-led. We also recognise that significant further growth is required during the plan period and that, despite the recent significant level of house-building, Long Itchington cannot be complete insulated from any additional housing during the 25 year lifetime of the plan (to 2050). We therefore accept that this stage of the process should not involve any detailed discussion regarding the selection of sites as this will follow at the next stage of the process. We also acknowledge that planning authorities need to develop and apply a consistent framework when selecting sites for development. However, we remain concerned about an over-reliance upon high level desk-top studies to justify the selection (and retention) of sites within the plan without adequate weight being attached to other available evidence. Our most recent experience of the site selection process was unfortunately not a very positive one. We discovered that once a site had been included within the plan (the SAP) the District Council consistently ignored both our arguments and the evidence that clearly demonstrated the unsuitability of the site for development. We do not wish to dwell on this situation but we consider this adds validity to our request to be fully engaged in the process at the stage sites are selected for development. Finally, as stated, we accept that Long Itchington may need to accept further housing development during the lifetime of the South Warwickshire Local Plan. All we wish to influence is the overall number of houses that should be built, their type – and the location of where they should be built.
