Issue and Options 2023

I warmly welcome the initiative taken by Stratford on Avon and Warwick Councils to produce the Issues and Options stage of the South Warwickshire Local Plan. However, on behalf of various clients, I have deep concerns about the focus of the proposals – in each of the Options – which propose to build several new settlements which will ‘capture’ the housing numbers but doubtless take many years to deliver – thereby starving development in existing settlements at hence will be the expense of the Districts’ rural communities which will inevitably lose their services and gradually decline. The Councils need to think again and consider a broader and more balanced portfolio of housing sites which provide housing opportunities for a wider range of home buyers and occupiers. They also need to consider allocating a variety of sites which will require more work and input from a broader range of SME builders and major builders rather than concentrating development in a handful of large settlements controlled by the volume promoters and builders.