Can all residents please raise their objections to Coventry Council objecting to the development in Sandpits lane – most council staff are working from home therefore send a message on the Planning Comments page or e-mail direct to planning@coventry.gov.uk.
The closing date for objections is 30th November and be sure to include TAMWORTH/BENNETTS ROAD DEVELOPMENT ref. RM/2020/2399
Some points are provided below. As always, it is best if you can adapt the bullets and use at least some of your own words and experience. Attached is the excellent Planning Objection prepared by Keresley Parish Council.
In addition you may wish to express your concerns on the following:
- Roads in the area are at capacity, promises to re-direct Amazon vehicles away from the area have not materialised.
- By their own admission, planners do not foresee the completion of a school. After a period of five years the land will then be taken back by the developers and used for more housing. A situation prevalent in Coventry.
- Restrictions for house buying caused by Covid, unemployment, reluctance of banks and building societies to offer favourable mortgages, over-capacity of student accommodation in Coventry and large numbers of vacant properties.
- Further destruction of Trees and Hedges.
- The omission of Taylor/Wimpey to include a payment towards G.P. and NHS costs (this is a required condition for all moderate to large scale developments in Coventry).
- FAILURE to ensure the Link Road will be constructed, in full, along with this development. Highways England have expressed doubts about it ever being finished1. Without it, extra traffic will clog congested local roads and turn country roads into rat runs. The route is not even specified, let alone a timetable for completion.
- FAILURE to give proper weight to traffic congestion. Modelling shows the junction of Long Lane, Tamworth Road, and the link road operating above safe ratio of flow to capacity (0.94) in 2022 even with junction improvements.
- FAILURE to assess the cumulative impact of all the 3100 homes to be built in Keresley and the full impact of the link road. Highways England state “the proposed link road …. has the potential to open up a new western traffic corridor to Coventry and could potentially affect the strategic traffic profile for the whole of Coventry”. On 27 March 19, they wrote of concerns that the full impact of the SUE was not being considered2. This is a very material change of circumstances
- FAILURE to provide safe access onto the estate, from Bennetts Road, with a dedicated right turn lane, in line with 2014 Outline planning permission. A simple T junction, as now provided will be dangerous. People drive too fast and there is poor visibility on Bennetts Road as it goes round curves and uphill. There have been fatal road crashes near the proposed access point every few years.
- FAILURE to provide a suitable design for the Local Centre – and assure that it will operate from the opening of the estate – so residents do not develop habits of driving elsewhere to shop. Once habits form, it is exceedingly difficult to change them.
- FAILURE to provide the required cycleways within the Avenue.
- FAILURE to respect the route of a Public Right of Way.
- FAILURE to provide a meaningful Footpath and Cycleway network.
- FAILURE to ensure Public Transport is provided within the site, as was promised in the outline permission. Some homes will be 500m from the nearest bus stop.
- FAILURE to provide a safe Play Area within the site.
- FAILURE to provide suitable Drainage.
- FAILURE to suitably protect the Trees within the environment of the site – root zones will be damaged.
- FAILURE to provide a Wildlife Site with a footpath/cycleway across the site.
- FAILURE to connect the site with foot and cycle paths into the city centre, as per Local Plan policy H3, para 6 – on the Tamworth Road, there is no footway at all from Sandpits Lane to St Thomas’s church. There are no cycle network routes which come anywhere near the site. This plan fails to provide “EASY ACCESS TO HIGH QUALITY PUBLIC TRANSPORT PROVISION AND WALKING AND CYCLE ROUTES”
Further
Suburbanisation
This plan breaches the 1995 Arden Design Guidance which remains in effect under the latest Arden Design Guidance SPD. This plan is the very “suburban development” which the guidance warns against. The 1995 Guidance states: “If the influence of suburban development continues to spread into the countryside, without recognising the landscape in which it sits, the distinction between rural and urban will be lost (pg5)
“The area …Keresley, Allesley and Coundon Wedge ….has been identified ….as Ancient Arden. This landscape is considered to be especially important as it is now the only remaining unspoilt area of ancient countryside left in Warwickshire” [emphasis added by Coventry Council in their original document] (pg. 7)
Population Figures
We continue to object to the principle of this development – that former green belt land is required on account of exceptional growth in Coventry. The population has failed to grow in the way predicted. A wide range of official data – information about jobs growth, house prices, school admissions, births, pensions collected, benefits claimed, voters registered, cars registered, gas and electricity consumed, and domestic waste produced – all show that population growth in Coventry since 2011 is completely unexceptional. This analysis has been endorsed by recognised experts, the Mayor of the West Midlands, and 5 local MPs, of both parties. There is enough land on the Council register of brownfield sites, to accommodate current levels of house building for at least 10 years. It is premature to consider building on former green belt land now.
Air Quality
We continue to object on the grounds that it will make our bad air even worse. We already are among the 30 worst places in the country for air pollution; far more people die in Coventry from Air Pollution than from road crashes. A large new development of luxury homes, considering all the 3100 homes planned for Keresley, will add thousands of extra cars to the city roads. Queueing traffic, already bad in the morning and evening, is a major source of pollutants. The Council has itself stated that the NW of the city already suffers “significant congestion” [Connecting Coventry, 2018]. It is premature to consider this application, until Coventry Council comes up with an agreed air quality plan. No final plan has been published or consulted upon. It is not acceptable to just hope for the best.
Congestion
Highways England (HE) have voiced serious concerns over the effects of nearby developments on the wider highway network. The state that there is “serious congestion” at J3 of the M6. It would be premature and perverse to grant the detailed approvals sought, while there are HE concerns over development at Tamworth Road, Thompsons Road, Watery Lane, and Eastern Green, which all feed into the same traffic corridors.
Hospitals
UHCW (Walsgrave Hospital) have already said that they do not have capacity to serve a larger population without additional investment. After the pandemic, this is a profoundly serious change of material considerations which justifies refusing this application. It would be very wrong to assume that the hospitals can manage, somehow.
NHS
No consultation, or consideration, has taken place to consider whether other NHS services – GP surgeries, ambulance services, mental health care, district nurses etc can accommodate substantial numbers of extra patients. It is premature to consider the application until the NHS is fully consulted. It is not sustainable to increase the population when even before the pandemic, the NHS was already struggling to provide adequate care
Employment
There is little work locally – Prologis Park is low employment density and is only proposing limited expansion – people will drive to work.
Education
There is no reference to a new secondary school. In the 2010 draft local plan Coventry CC specified that a new secondary school would be needed. Making children travel further to secondary school will inevitably lead to more school runs and more driving.