Issue and Options 2023
Search form responses
Results for Origin3 search
New searchselected
selected
selected
No answer given
3.20 The Consultation Document sets out that both the Stratford-on-Avon Core Strategy and the Warwick Local Plan set out settlement boundaries for some or all of the settlements in their area, and that they establish where new non-strategic small-scale development may be appropriate within the confines of existing settlements. Two options are proposed, offering two different approaches to setting settlement boundaries in the SWLP. 3.21 It is unfortunate that there is not an option for removing settlement boundaries altogether and using a more nuanced and sensitive approach to assessing the appropriate-ness of development within and adjoining settlements in South Warwickshire. Settlement boundaries are inevitably drawn tight to the built form of settlements and are set out as an absolute limit to development, with any proposals beyond the boundary assessed as being in open countryside, even if the site is contiguous with the settlement, close to existing facilities and represents clear rounding off. In these circumstances, perfectly sustainable proposals for development may be assessed as inappropriate simply by virtue of being on the wrong side of an arbitrary line. In the most unfortunate examples, a settlement’s opportunity for modest growth which would sustain services and enable local people to find homes in their community can be thwarted by a settlement boundary. 3.22 We would suggest that settlement boundaries are not carried forward into the SWLP. Other policy approaches are used in other parts of England which enable judgements to be made on a case-by-case basis, with reference to the status of a settlement in the settlement hierarchy – which we note is already in existence for Stratford-on-Avon as set out in the Core Strategy Policy CS.15. An example of an approach which would be very successful in South Warwickshire can in fact be found in the Local Plan of the neighbouring West Oxfordshire District Council, which applies an infill and rounding off policy to its settlement hierarchy without reliance on settlement boundaries. This approach has allowed for a nuanced approach to village development in very sensitive landscape settings, which has led to highly successful developments in appropriate locations for many years and has been continued in successive local plans.
selected
selected
selected
selected
selected
selected
3.7 The Consultation Document at the start of this section notes that “South Warwickshire has a dispersed settlement pattern and is home to a significant number of existing settlements of varying sizes.” The Consultation Document goes on to note that as well as the 9 identified main towns, South Warwickshire has 82 villages and hundreds of hamlets. 3.8 It is stated that the SWLP will seek to maximise the capacity of existing urban areas to meet development needs to 2050, and this aim is entirely in compliance with the NPPF and is supported. However, given the dispersed settlement pattern of the area it must also be true that a significant number of residents of South Warwickshire live and work in these rural settlements, and therefore the spatial strategy must also have recognition of the needs of these places to see some development to sustain these communities into the future. 3.9 The Consultation Document goes on to discuss the concept of 20-minute neighbourhoods as a tool for the creation of sustainable communities, but notes that: “In rural areas, the implementation of the 20-minute neighbourhood poses a different set of challenges, including poor broadband and mobile phone coverage, inferior public transport provision and road transport, and a poor variety of employment opportunities. Housing affordability and isolation from and access to services are other issues facing many rural areas.” 3.10 The solutions suggested are either that market towns become 20-minute neighbourhoods to which residents of smaller villages must travel to access services, or the creation of rural networks of villages which develop services that people need accessible by local public transport. 3.11 With greater numbers of people working from home and looking to live in more rural areas, it is suggested that the option of concentrating services only in the larger market towns will simply lead to more trips to these locations, predominantly by car, to access day to day services, and the associated depletion of services in smaller settlements without a critical mass of people using them to sustain viability. We would argue that there is an opportunity to develop networks of rural settlements, sustained by accessibility to homes, jobs and services, with the larger market towns accessed when residents need to access higher level services that are more efficiently provided in the larger towns. Such an approach could complement the maximisation of the use of existing urban areas to accommodate strategic growth, but would enable rural settlements to accommodate modest growth and sustainable patterns of development. 3.12 To take Ettington as an example, the Stratford-on-Avon Core Strategy identifies Ettington as a Category 3 Local Service Village. It is identified as such based on its size and the range of facilities available including a Spar shop, Primary School, pub, employment opportunities including the Ettington Hall Hotel and bus routes leading to Stratford and Banbury. The Core Strategy identified that Category 3 settlements should be able to accommodate 450 dwellings towards the total plan requirement. 3.13 We consider that the SWLP could take a similar approach to the role that settlements such as Ettington could play, forming part of a network of rural service centres joined by public transport and improvements to other modes of travel including cycling and walking. These settlements could therefore be locations for modest growth complementing their role as rural service centres and carrying forwards the strategy set out in the Stratford-on-Avon Core Strategy.
