Issue and Options 2023
Search form responses
Results for Residents Concerned for Kenilworth South search
New searchQ-E1.1:• We have great concern that the HEDNA assumptions and projections are too heavily based on past performance and take insufficient note (or no note at all) of structural changes to the economy that will have a profound effect on Coventry and a knock on effect on South Warwickshire. The major structural change to which we refer is the banning of the sale of all combustion motor vehicles from 2030. • The HEDNA report identifies that Gross Value Added (GVA) in Coventry and Warwickshire is £26,869m, of which motor vehicle manufacturing is £2,949m, 9.7%. With the inclusion of indirect suppliers, the impact of motor vehicle manufacturing will be greater still. • The report assumes overall GVA growth of 1.4% up to 2043, with manufacturing also forecast to grow by the same amount. The report identifies motor vehicles as a particular strength and states that manufacturing GVA is expected to be driven by the automotive sector. • No recognition is made of the massive uncertainty that exists due to the need for motor manufacturing to transition to electric vehicles. There are far less components required for an electric vehicle, which will have a huge impact on the component supply industry and the machine tool sector in the area, together with the engine plant in North Warwickshire. There is massive uncertainty over the possible development of the Coventry Airport site as a giga battery plant. No investors have been forthcoming to date. In the light of this uncertainty, will Jaguar Land Rover commit to the large scale manufacturing of electric vehicles in the area? • At best, employment in the area will suffer from the reduced demand for motor vehicle components and at worst a whole industry could be lost. Q-E1.2:• The Local Plan should focus on specific challenges that the area is facing in making its employment projections. Different scenarios should be modelled for the level of motor vehicle manufacture and related support activities that may exist in the area, with assessment made on which option is most likely, with the implications of this fed into the assessment of housing need.
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Fields across Kenilworth South include ancient Oak trees, orchards and hedgerows which support the multitude of birds and wildlife in the area. Local residents who use the multitude of footpaths report regular sightings of an array of wildlife on a daily basis. o Birds such as fieldfares, redwings, woodpeckers, blue tits, great tits, goldfinches, greenfinches, yellowhammers, lapwings, cuckoos, swifts, house martins, owls, song thrushes, sparrowhawks, buzzards, kestrels, robins, sparrows, wrens, chaffinches. There are numerous ponds and other wetlands supporting ducks, moorhens and herons (among other water birds) o Animals such as foxes, badgers, hedgehogs, rabbits, hares (boxing in the fields around mating time), muntjac deer, bats of different types and various other species. o Numerous ancient tree species, an apple orchard (on the south side of Rouncil Lane), and a large bee population in numerous hives along Rouncil Lane. • Removing their habitats would create a devastating impact on the biodiversity of Kenilworth South. Indeed, releasing areas of greenbelt at all over extensions to villages and brownfield sites seems a complete contradiction to mitigating against climate harm.
Green Belt land in Kenilworth South is UAA, regularly producing barley. A product which saw a national decrease in production by 4.2% during 2022. (ONS) Green Belt land which has soils rich enough for food production should be protected.
There are numerous footpaths across the Kenilworth South location including Millennium Way which connects Warwick to Kenilworth Castle, as well as other footpaths connecting Rouncil Lane to Rounds Hill and across to the Warwickshire, Leek Wootton, Hatton and further. These footpaths are frequented daily by a multitude of dog walkers, runners, cyclists, ramblers and families, who benefit immensely from the landscape character. Many of these are the residents signing this consultation response who use the footpaths each day, often twice a day. It is also used by Kenilworth School for recreational trips, for Duke of Edinburgh participants and for the Scouts and Guides for whom the footpaths are safe for children to use in summer for independent hikes. This makes the area what it is. Their extensive use of the footpaths significantly contributes to the mental and physical health and wellbeing of the local community and give the opportunity for everyone to gain direct access to the neighbouring countryside. Furthermore, local residents have purposely chosen to live in this peaceful location to reap the benefits of doing so on mental health and wellbeing, which are very far reaching. Development in this area would have a negative impact on the recreational use of the footpaths and the quality of historical and ancient landscape character.
We would support development of brownfield sites as a priority, since this will return otherwise derelict areas to use, generally have little adverse impact on the environment. Such sites are often much better situated in relation to existing urban areas and services.
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As referred to in our response Q- H1- 1, the previous population projections have provided for a substantial over estimation of the population growth for Coventry and as a consequence the requirement for housing in the South Warwickshire area. The current local plan is therefore providing for a population that has been over estimated. Nowhere in the SWLP document is there any recognition of the impact of this population over estimate on the current plan, with its subsequent knock on effects to the 2029-50 plan. Current Plan with Specific Regard to Kenilworth • The 2021 census established a population for Kenilworth of 22,538 and it has approximately 10,000 households. • The Local Plan for the period 2017 to 2029 identified just under 2,000 new houses to be built in Kenilworth, with very few of them to be built by 2021, so the plan envisaged a 20% increase in the number of households in Kenilworth. In addition, a further 1,800 houses are scheduled to be built on the neighbouring Kings Hill during the plan period. • The demand for these houses is questionable. • Demographer Merie Gering identified that the projected need for new houses was based on population growth projections that failed to materialise. The concerns raised have been subject to further investigation by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), who have acknowledged a substantial over estimation of the population of Coventry. • The progress to date on delivering the proposed number of new houses in Kenilworth would tend to support in practice the claims of Mr Gering. The two major developments in Kenilworth (East Kenilworth – Crewe Lane to Woodside and Thickthorn) are running some 3 to 4 years behind the start dates identified in the 2019 plan, with many developers reticent to commence speculative building. • The 2029-50 plan, Page 378, N51 of the detailed Sustainability Appraisal, identifies seven broad locations as reasonable alternatives for development and on page 590 identifies the opportunity for the provision of up to 2,000 homes in Kenilworth. • With the nearly 2,000 homes to be built under the current plan, this amounts to an additional 4,000 homes in total since 2020, an increase of 40%. • At present the main north – south artery through Kenilworth, together with routes feeding on to it, is seriously congested at peak times, with traffic increasingly using rat runs along residential streets. This is before the impact of the 2,000 additional houses in the current plan. To add further housing of any number, let alone a further 2,000 in the future plan will not be accommodated by the road structure. With particular reference to Kenilworth South, the construction of some 235 houses on Rouncil Lane (6th Form College) and the Woodcote development in Leek Wootton will add further pressure to traffic congestion at the junction of Rouncil Lane with Warwick Road and up to the Texaco roundabout, which will already be congested from the additional houses to be built in Thickthorn and Crewe Lane. • Nowhere does the plan demonstrate how such an increase in houses and resulting traffic may be sustainable and indeed makes no proposal for any substantial infrastructure improvements to attempt to sustain it. • We believe that, with the construction of houses planned to be built during the current plan, Kenilworth will be full and unable to absorb further building as is intimated in the SWLP.
Q-H1-1:• The HEDNA is absolutely right to move away from the Standard Method recommended by the Government. As the ONS acknowledges, the Standard Method used to project population growth has consistently over estimated growth in Coventry. • The HEDNA report, however, acknowledges that providing an accurate assessment is challenging for Coventry population growth, which throws up inconsistencies and discrepancies, resulting in over estimation of the projected population. • With this very uncertain base, can we have any confidence in the population projections for 2029 – 2050, from which housing need is derived. To that end para 5.109, page 136 of the final report acknowledges that assumptions will need to be reviewed – “needing to grapple with the same issues raised, notably how to deal with past population estimates where Census data shows these to be substantially wrong.” • The Standard Method took 2014 based household projections (it is not apparent how firm a base point this was) and applied an uplift, based on relative affordability in the area. For the Coventry area, the report advises that a 35% uplift was applied and from these assumptions and calculations, a figure of 5,554 dwellings is arrived at as the required number of new dwellings per annum in the Coventry and Warwickshire area. Para 15.3 explains that new demographic projections have been used and the result is a projected need of 4,906 dwellings per annum. There is little indication that there is any more reliable evidence to support the revised housing number. • Given these significant uncertainties and given that there is six years before the plan period commences and twenty seven years until it ends, we do not think that you have a base for making any definitive projections for housing needs. Q-H1-2:• We have no expertise in assessing housing needs but it would seem that the first priority would be to review the assumptions made by the Standard Method in assessing past population growth, determine where reality differed from the assumptions and seek to adopt more appropriate assumptions for the future.
