Royal Leamington Spa Neighbourhood Development Plan

These are the Comments from Members of Kenilworth Town Council:


Response to Royal Leamington Spa Town Council, on Submission version of the Neighbourhood Development Plan.

Members of Kenilworth Town Council have read and considered your plan and documentation and are impressed by its ambition and thoroughness. We wish you the best of luck with the remaining steps in the process of completing your Neighbourhood Plan.

With reference to Policy RLS2 – Housing Design:-
Kenilworth Town Council (KTC) would like to share their experience of the way that KP15 in the Kenilworth Neighbourhood Plan (KNP) has been observed by developers.
“Policy KP15 Environmental Standards of New Buildings
Development proposals are encouraged to adopt higher environmental standards of building design and energy performance such as the Passivhaus or similar approach.
This policy seeks to encourage applicants to incorporate the highest standards of building design ad performance. The public sector has an important role to play in demonstrating the practicalities and long term benefits of adopting high environmental building standards.”
The KNP was written under the NPPF 2012 and the Inspector required that the policy was amended as we could not require building standards above the national building regulations at the time.
Hence the word ‘encouraged’ is used.
The result of this, from the viewpoint of the KTC, is that this policy has been effectively ignored by developers whether that be for private developments or public sector builds.
KTC would recommend that policy RLS2 is reviewed to consider whether a clear requirement can be specified without words such as ‘encouraged’, ‘where possible’, ‘not reasonably practicable’ all which may provide developers leeway to not meet the desired intention of this policy.

With reference to Policy RLS15 – Cycling:-
KTC would like to positively state their support for the cycleway to connect Leamington to Kenilworth for active travel (K2L) that is referred to in this policy statement.

These are the Comments from Members of Kenilworth Town Council:


Response to Royal Leamington Spa Town Council, on Submission version of the Neighbourhood Development Plan.

Members of Kenilworth Town Council have read and considered your plan and documentation and are impressed by its ambition and thoroughness. We wish you the best of luck with the remaining steps in the process of completing your Neighbourhood Plan.

With reference to Policy RLS2 – Housing Design:-
Kenilworth Town Council (KTC) would like to share their experience of the way that KP15 in the Kenilworth Neighbourhood Plan (KNP) has been observed by developers.
“Policy KP15 Environmental Standards of New Buildings
Development proposals are encouraged to adopt higher environmental standards of building design and energy performance such as the Passivhaus or similar approach.
This policy seeks to encourage applicants to incorporate the highest standards of building design ad performance. The public sector has an important role to play in demonstrating the practicalities and long term benefits of adopting high environmental building standards.”
The KNP was written under the NPPF 2012 and the Inspector required that the policy was amended as we could not require building standards above the national building regulations at the time.
Hence the word ‘encouraged’ is used.
The result of this, from the viewpoint of the KTC, is that this policy has been effectively ignored by developers whether that be for private developments or public sector builds.
KTC would recommend that policy RLS2 is reviewed to consider whether a clear requirement can be specified without words such as ‘encouraged’, ‘where possible’, ‘not reasonably practicable’ all which may provide developers leeway to not meet the desired intention of this policy.

With reference to Policy RLS15 – Cycling:-
KTC would like to positively state their support for the cycleway to connect Leamington to Kenilworth for active travel (K2L) that is referred to in this policy statement.