Category Archives: Updates

Please see here & here two applications to be decided by Council on 23rd February. If any residents would be willing to speak at this meeting please register as required.

The officers committee reports can be seen here, beginning on page 29 – See items 7 & 8.

Please object to this planning application at the corner of Fivefield Road and Tamworth Road.

Ref: OUT/2022/3246
40 Homes
Deadline – 29 Dec 2022, midnight
send to Planning@coventry.gov.uk
copy to emma.spandley@coventry.gov.uk

Bullet points follow below:

• Still no firm decision on the planned primary school in Bennetts Road. The location is not sustainable as local amenities, School, Doctors, Chemist, shops etc. are not within walking distance and there is no adequate bus service. The development would be entirely car dependent.
• No consultations sought from Education, Sport, NHS, Fire, Police, Woodland Trust, and Warwickshire Wildlife.
• 4 Years after Mark Andrews assured us there would be a sponsor for the new Keresley SUE primary school, there is still nothing arranged.  At Banner Lane, and the Marconi development, schools were never constructed and land was returned to the developers.
• The local hospitals are at 100% of capacity, as are the surgeries.  Doctors are at breaking point. There is  A national shortage of Doctors and therefore the development will be unable to accommodate any additional residents of Keresley.  Local surgeries were not consulted, nor was the primary care trust.
• No 106 commitments offered.
• Homes should not be built on this site because the view from the Hill Fort, a scheduled ancient monument, will  be damaged.  That view is deemed to be of “strategic importance” in the Coventry Council Keresley Masterplan SPD. It is untrue, as claimed in the Pegasus Heritage assessment that, “No intervisibility was ……identified between the heritage asset and the proposed development Site”. The picture below, was taken from Corley Rocks Scheduled Ancient Monument [ie the Hill Fort] in Dec 2022. The snow covered roofs of sheds in the existing farmyard at Hall Hill Farm, [in the centre of the picture], are clearly visible, contradicting the claims of the Pegasus report. Homes built on that site would be a blot on the landscape. Fern House, a locally listed building is also visible to the right and the setting of this asset too would be damaged.

• The Keresley Masterplan SPD gives great weight to the views from the Hill Fort: “8. Key View Points. These are highlighted at Burrow Hill Fort and the top of Hounds Hill. These are considered of strategic importance linked to the setting of the SAM.”[emphasis added]
• The local plan [[Green and Blue Infrastructure] pg212] includes a requirement “To ….protect the most sensitive historic view corridors and setting of the Hill Fort Scheduled Monument. This development will damage the view from the hill fort and its setting. As such the application egregiously violates both the local plan policy and the Keresley SUE SPD.
• The planned exit onto Tamworth Road is dangerous and lies just after a bend. Cars often speed on this road and there have been fatalities in the fairly recent past.
• They are allowing a 15m buffer to the Ancient Hall Yard Wood. This is the minimum allowed by Natural England who state ‘ A larger buffer may be required depending upon the size of the development.’The Woodland Trust, who have not be consulted, would request a much larger buffer – and have done so for the Bellways development OUT/2019/0022, just down the road. In Coventry’s Ecology SPD they state. ‘Surveys should include the whole of the development boundary and adjacent land where direct or indirect impacts upon adjacent habitats are anticipated.’ They have not surveyed Hall Yard Wood.
• No firm provision in place for a bus service, currently three buses per day and no Sunday service.
• The Fivefield Road is an Eco-site with Ancient Hedgerows. The hedgerow boundary separating Coventry/Corley is also Ancient.
• They calculate 24 vehicle movements at peak hours – 40 houses x 2 cars all needing to use their cars to go anywhere plus delivery vehicles.

URGENT – Please object to these two planning applications in Keresley OUT/2022/0712 and OUT/2022/0713 by Tuesday 18 Oct, Midnight.

OUT/2022/0712 – 290 homes next to Bunsons Wood, between Fivefield Rd and Bennetts Rd

OUT/2022/0713 – 260 homes behind Manor Farm, West of Bennetts Rd

Here are a number of points you might which to mention. A short objection is fine. Do add in your own relevant experiences such as – how long you have been waiting for surgery at the hospital, getting children into local schools, traffic in the morning and evening, cycling to town where they relate to the bullet points.

Email your objection to Planning Department and Emma Spandley.

Keresley Sustainable Urban Extension (SUE) is progressing and currently has a number of planning applications from different developers awaiting a decision. There’s an opportunity for members of the public to hear a brief update from each housing developer present and the opportunity for a Q&A session with members of the public.

Confirmed Attending so far:
– Bellway
– Richborough Estates
– LSP Developments (Proposed Local Centre Development)
– Coventry City Council Planning Dept.

Please make the most of this opportunity to hear from the developers and also raise questions/concerns.

Please let anyone know who may be interested in attending. Please see details and RSVP on Facebook.

URGENT  – Deadline, Friday 20^th May

Please urgently object to 444 homes off Penny Park Lane and Watery Lane, in front of the Hare and Hounds. Points for objection are here. The Deadline is Friday 20^th May (which really means before start of business on Monday should be good enough – the council has recently agreed this arrangement).

Sorry for the deluge of requests. This is the council’s doing. We have asked them to extend the deadline because the website has regularly been unavailable, but we can’t count on it.

Send your email to

Planning@coventry.gov.uk
Nigel.Smith@coventry.gov.uk
emma.spandley@coventry.gov.uk
  
Many thanks & apologies for the late notice – it has been a nightmare responding to all these applications at once.

Many thanks

CanSue

Dear all,

Please object to OUT/2022/0713 – 260 homes at Manor Farm, Bennetts Rd, Keresley by (15/5/22). Please see some top line bullets below (more details here):

• There is grave doubt about the population forecasts for Coventry and any need for this housing. On the precautionary principle it would be reckless to make decisions now, on bad data, ahead of the census, which will very shortly resolve the matter.
• The Local plan states retention of ancient hedgerows is “essential” but the masterplan for the estate removes ancient and important hedges [H2,H3, H3, & H8]. It is a breach of local plan policies H2 and GE3 which protect “ancient hedges and important hedges, without qualification – the policies say they will be retained, not ‘when practical’ or ‘possible’.
• the Transport modelling systematically underestimates future traffic. Major sources of traffic growth are omitted. Local junctions are currently over capacity and likely to get worse even with mitigation, if the true scale of traffic growth is assessed.
• The government this week announced a dramatic change of policy – that housing targets will no longer be enforced and the people will have control. As such, irrevocable planning decisions motivated by past targets, should be paused until the new freedom of the local authority to make its own decisions, and the powers of the public to accept or reject such decisions, are clear. It would be folly to sacrifice the last best piece of the Warwickshire countryside, – CCC’s own words – when the compulsion to do so is gone.
• Coventry Secondary Schools are oversubscribed. There will be nowhere nearby for children to go to secondary.
• It is more and more doubtful that the new primary school promised for Keresley will be built. Four years ago, Mark Andrews promised that it would happen, that the council was urgently seeking a sponsor, but still no one has agreed to deliver the school. It is an old story. The same thing happened at Banner Brook, and Marconi, where promised schools, and surgeries never materialised. It is unsustainable to build homes, and hope that schools and surgeries will follow.
• the NHS has no capacity for additional growth. Both UHCW and Warwick Hospital are running at 100%. Covid ought to have taught us not to be casual about spare capacity for emergencies . Doctors surgeries are all full up too.

Please email your objections to the planning department (planning@coventry.gov.uk) and cc Emma Spandley (emma.spandley@coventry.gov.uk).

Many thanks

CanSue

Dear Friends,

Please be ready to send objections to planning applications in Keresley, especially the Bellways 550 homes development off Tamworth road and Fivefield Road by close of play tomorrow, Friday 13^th May.

These are the application references:

1. RMM/2022/0636 Dwellings (37) off Keresley Link Road
2. RMM/2022/0679 Dwellings (18) Tamworth Road
3. RMM/2022/0678 Dwellings (205) Fivefield Road
4. RMM/2022/0633 Dwellings (284) Tamworth/Fivefield Road

Included below are some points you may wish to reference for individual references:

RMM/2022/0633

• Addition of two access points on Fivefield Road not approved in OUT/2019/0022. The decision notice approved two not four.
• Failure to provide safe pedestrian access in Fivefield Road from the vehicle junction to the existing housing.  220 metres without a footway or street lighting.
• Effective closure of footpath M315 by not providing a path alongside plot 498.
• Effective closure of footpath M313 by not providing a suitable path through the development, instead proposing the use of the roadside footways.
• Failure to provide suitable access for fire tenders on some of the “Private Drives” which are greater than 20 metres in length.
• Use of plot vehicle access points as turning points which have the potential to become blocked.
• Failure to provide bus stops as required by item 4 (iv) of the decision notice for OUT/2019/0022.

RMM/2022/0636

• Failure to provide a suitable crossing point for footpath M315 as it crosses the Keresley Link Road.

RMM/2022/0678

• Failure to provide suitable access for fire tenders on some of the “Private Drives” which are greater than 20 metres in length.
• Use of plot vehicle access points as turning points which have the potential to become blocked.
• Failure to provide bus stops as required by item 4 (iv) of the decision notice for OUT/2019/0022.

All

Objection for 0679 is the Cedar Tree which is awaiting a decision. 0679 and 0633 access onto Tamworth Road, they could be reminded of the planning application for converting Keresley Manor into a Boutique Hotel which was turned down with the excuse the Tamworth Road was a busy road and more accesses onto it would be dangerous. Recently Keresley Manor has had plans passed for a standalone house,  fronting Tamworth Road with its own driveway onto Tamworth Road, this layout was refused and they were told to use existing Keresley Manor drive.

Tree removal is 396 trees and 1844 metres of hedgerow with the statement THIS MAY CHANGE WHEN FINAL LAYOUT IS DETERMINED.

All applications concern the 20m buffer to Ancient woods. Advice from Woodland Trust, Warwickshire Wildlife and Warwickshire Biodiversity is a minimum 50m buffer to secure the future of both fauna and flora. Noise, pollution in air and soil & increases in lighting will be destructive to wildlife. Immediately  adjacent to the buffers the developers plan various access roads leading from the individual dwellings.

Hydrology and drainage has been questioned by Sylvan (developers surveyors) and Warwickshire Biodiversity as presenting a problem. The Woods are on a slope cumulating in a valley and the Hall Brook. There is  to be a balancing pool at the top of the slope thus interfering with natural water flow. This in itself would be destructive to the woods particularly the Alders which is a wet woodland.

Destruction of a Victorian Stable Block (no.0633) which is in good condition with a new roof and a World War One underground Bomb Shelter (0679).

The area was released from the Greenbelt on the assumption of an extraordinary population increase in Coventry, the Census is available shortly and any decisions  should not be made until after the true figures are published.

The area was released from the Greenbelt on the understanding the Keresley Link Road would be built to accommodate this expansion. This is in doubt. No decision should be made until the Link Road and funding for it is a certainty.

Traffic surveys for the area do not include all the relevant developments – Eastern Green, Meggitts, Allesley Wedge development two further Keresley developments and a huge under-estimate of Amazon traffic plus further developments on the Lyons site.

Please also see

Here are two documents detailing responses to both RMM/2022/0633 and RMM/2022/0678 please feel free to include points raised in these too.

Many thanks

CanSue

Dear Friends,

Urgent – Please object to this planning application next to Bunsons Wood in Keresley by Sunday evening 8 May 2022.  Bullet points below.  

OUT/2022/0712
Richborough Estates
290 Homes
between Fivefield Road and Bennetts Road

send your response to
Planning@coventry.gov.uk and emma.spandley@coventry.gov.uk

On the website, the council show Saturday as the deadline but they have confirmed they will accept comments received up to Monday morning first thing.

Some suggestions below 

Objection to OUT/2022/0712 –

Homes between Bennetts Rd and Fivefield Rd, Richborough Estates

I wish to object to this development on the following grounds

1. There is grave doubt about the population forecasts for Coventry, and any need for this housing. On the precautionary principle it would be reckless to make decisions now, on bad data, ahead of the census, which will very shortly resolve the matter.
2. The Ancient Woodlands are insufficiently protected. A 30m buffer is inadequate. The Woodland Trust recommends at least 50m and preferably 100m. A narrow buffer will enable fly tipping, littering, and cats and dogs disturbing wildlife.
3. the Transport modelling systematically underestimates future traffic. Major sources of traffic growth are omitted. Local junctions are currently over capacity and likely to get worse even with mitigation, if the true scale of traffic growth is assessed.
4. [your own personal reasons – how important open countryside is to you for recreation, exercise, your dog, mental health, historic setting of Coventry, the last best unspoiled piece of Warwickshire Ancient Arden landscape (CCC’s own words in 1995).

Lack of need: The Precautionary Principle
There is abundant evidence that the population forecasts for Coventry are wrong. On the Precautionary Principle, which is law in the UK under the Aarhus convention, it would be reckless to make planning decisions on the basis of highly questionable figures, when authoritative data from the latest census, will be published in just a month or two – ONS have promised results by “early summer”.

The sole reason which the inspector gave for removing land from greenbelt was alleged exceptional population growth. Coventry Council is well aware of expert evidence, previously submitted, that the claimed extraordinary growth has not happened. As such, there is no reason for building unneeded homes on land which Coventry Council described as the bests remaining piece of unspoiled landscape in Warwickshire (in the 1995 Coventry Arden Design Guidelines, which remain in effect).

In May 2021 a lengthy investigation from the Office of Statistics Regulation (the official regulator of government statistics) cast considerable doubt over the ONS population forecasts for Coventry, finding “the population estimates for some cities such as Coventry, did seem to be inconsistent with, and potentially higher than, local evidence would suggest. This also appeared to be the case in a number of smaller cities with large student populations.”

Coventry Council responded, in May 2021 that the findings were “not definitive”. While the findings did not give a precise number for the current population of Coventry, this does not remove the regulator’s strong doubts about the improbability of the existing ONS population figures. They wrote “it is disappointing to hear that our findings are not being considered sufficiently within the council discussions. While it may not feel like it, I would echo Ed’s sentiment that our report was one of our more hard hitting pieces…… we are convinced that there is an issue with Coventry’s figures and that local sources of data are clearly inconsistent with the ONS figures”  – email of Elise Baseley, Statistics Regulator, OSR, 2 June 2021

The regulators first draft of their report, obtained through FOI, was even stronger – “fixes have not done enough to address the overestimation of these groups in some areas. This has led to an over reliance on insufficiently robust data to inform local planning decisions such as the need to build additional schools and housing.”

Traffic

1. The plans call for Fivefield Road to be blocked, but no detail is given on where this will occur, nor the mechanism for the closure. Residents who rely on this popular rural connection, should be given the opportunity to comment on the full details of the matter before reserved matters are considered.
2. The Traffic modelling systematically underestimates future traffic
   1. Traffic on the Tamworth Road and Bennetts Road is already bad, with long queues in the mornings. The cumulative effect of the SUE, including this development, will make it worse. Even with mitigation, the Hub study still shows traffic over 100% capacity at some junctions.
   2. The baseline Automatic Traffic Counts in the HUB study for this development (the latest iteration of the traffic modelling ) were done in June July 2021, when traffic was suppressed by covid and people working from home – around 10% below previous levels¹. If the baseline is too low, then all future forecasts of growth, using Tempro and NTEM, will also be too low. The traffic modelling needs to be redone, with traffic counts from a normal time.
   3. The modelling failed to include major sources of traffic:
      1. the new HS2 station, which will have 7,500 parking spaces, 100,000 new jobs, and 4,000 new homes – in 2014, Coventry Council complained in a petition to Parliament about the damaging effect of HS2 traffic on Coventry roads².
      2. Passenger growth at the airport – forecast to more than double, from 11m/year to 27m/yr. DfT TAG M4 guidance on traffic modelling requires airports to be included in the modelling, in addition to the use of NTEM and TEMPRO.
         
         “Adjusting NTEM data to take account of surface transport for air passengers”
         
         7.3.9 “Surface travel demand for airports should be considered for all schemes, but where there is no major airport within or near to the study area, it may be sufficient to assume that such travel is minimal and make a case to the Department for not analysing it explicitly.”³
      3. A new corridor from the A45 to the M6.
         Highways England anticipated that the Keresley link road could open up a whole new traffic profile
         “In summary, Highways England has recommended that consideration should be given to other planned growth including Local Plan allocated development (with the Eastern Green SUE being the most prominent), as well as the inclusion of the proposed Keresley SUE Link Road. The introduction of this would provide a new corridor for traffic to the west of the city and could potentially affect the strategic traffic profile for the whole of Coventry.”

The traffic impacts need to be re-evaluated. The traffic studies use invalid and misleading standards:, the 1993 IEMA guidance. Relying on it, the studies ignore impacts less than 30% . This is misleading. The report itself states that this rule is not applicable to matters of highways “capacity” or “operation”. Current guidance in both Northern Ireland and Scotland states that a 5% impact is significant and on busy roads, even a 1% change can be significant.

“3.18. It should be noted that the Department of Environment suggests in Planning Policy Note 13 (DOE 1988) that increases of traffic of 5% are likely to be considered as significant by the Dept of Transport. The context of such a statement relates to the operational and capacity criteria of a highway and not its environmental impacts. It is suggested that the criteria set out in these paragraphs are more relevant to assessment of the environmental impacts and hence the higher thresholds are more relevant” [from the 1993 IEMA guidance]

It is not assured that the Keresley Link Road will ever be built in full. Highways England has expressed doubts. “the purpose of the additional modelling is to ensure that, from an SRN perspective, we are not committing to a position that relies upon on a final stage of a Link Road scheme that may not come forward but had been demonstrated to be necessary in traffic terms.”⁴

If this came to pass, traffic skirting the north west of Coventry, could end up rat running through the streets of Keresley and Holbrooks to get to Junction 3, M6

Forecast Traffic at the junction of Exhall Rd and Bennetts Rd, without mitigation – way over capacity
from the HUB Transport Assessment for OUT/2022/0712 Richborough Estates.

Traffic Forecast, Bennetts Rd Exhall Rd [J2], with mitigation – still over 100%, with no spare capacity, More than 0.85 ratio of flow to capacity (RFC) is considered undesirable by traffic engineers. Coventry Council, in their Connecting Coventry paper of 2017, point to the chaos on Coventry Roads caused by regular closures of the M6 – having recognised such events, there is a mandatory need for reserve capacity on the roads, not to run them at 100% of normal capacity.

Provide greater resilience to the motorway and trunk road network: when problems occur on the M6 the A45 and other routes around Coventry are frequently brought to a standstill and this undermines the attraction of the city as a place in which to invest;. [from Connecting Coventry Jan 2017]
The TA did not consider large new developments at Hospital Lane and School Lane which are likely to feed traffic into Exhall Rd, especially if the Keresley Link Rd is not completed as far as Prologis Park. In so far as the TA systematically underestimates future traffic, the future situation is very likely to be worse than forecast even with mitigation.

Many thanks

CanSue

1 https://www.creds.ac.uk/publications/less-is-more-changing-travel-in-a-post-pandemic-society/

2 https://www.coventry.gov.uk/downloads/file/15168/coventry_city_council_hs2_petition

3 TAG UNIT M4 Forecasting and Uncertainty May 2019

4 Highways England to CCC 4 Jul 2019 [our doc 20]

The first of 7 applications regarding 550 Dwellings on Fivefield/Tamworth Road has the cut-off date for objections coming up soon. This will be the first of the objections for applications with various cut-off dates in May.

• RMM/2022/0680 Buffer to Ancient Woods. Comments no later 13.5.22
• RMM/2022/0636 37 Dwellings off Keresley Link Road. Comments no later 13.5.22
• RMM/2022/0679 18 Dwellings Tamworth Road. Comments no later 13.5.22
• RMM/2022/0678 205 Dwellings Fivefield Road. Comments no later 13.5.22
• RMM/2022/0678 284 Dwellings Tamworth Road. Comments no latter 13.5.22
• OUT/2022/0712 290 Dwellings Fivefield/Bennetts Road. Comments no latter 7.5.22
• OUT/2022/0713 260 Manor Farm. Comments no later 14.5.22

Ref. RMM/2022/0680 please send comments no later than 13th May 2022 to planning@coventry.gov.uk. Quoting reference. Please see a suggested text below, but please amend to your own words:

I wish to object to the planning proposal of 20m buffer to Ancient Woods.

The 20m buffer is insufficient. Please be guided by the advice given by experts, namely Woodland Trust, Warwickshire Wildlife and Warwickshire Biodiversity Team who all say a minimum 50m buffer is needed to secure the future of these very important and unique woods. These can never be replaced. The wildlife within these woods require foraging distances in order to survive. Please also refer to the Warwickshire Biodiversity survey of this area as part of their LWS audits. THESE WOODS REMAIN THE MOST BIODIVERSE  POCKETS OF LAND WITHIN COVENTRY. LARGE SCALE HOUSING IN THE AREA WOULD BE DETRIMENTAL TO THE SITE. THIS AREA INCLUDES HABITATS SCARCE IN WARWICKSHIRE AND PARTICULARLY RARE IN COVENTRY. THE SITES HOLD MANY OF WARWICKSHIRES NOTEABLE AND UNCOMMON PLANTS, FIVE RED LISTED BREEDING BIRDS AND THE ONLY SITE LEFT IN COVENTRY FOR BREEDING CUCKOO.

Noise and pollution both air and soil, increases in lighting associated with building works and at the occupancy stage will all effect wildlife, flora and fauna.

The developers, surveyors and Warwickshire Biodiversity have expressed concerns regarding the effects of large scale housing and how changes to hydrology and drainage will effect the woods and habitats. The woods are sited on a slope cumulating into a valley and the Hall Brook. Changes in natural water flow could cause serious long term destruction.

The Developers list 124 trees and over half a mile of Ancient Hedgerows  planned to be destroyed with the comment ‘This may change when the final layout is determined.’

The aim of a developer is to maximise an area and include as many houses as possible. THIS SHOULD NOT BE AT THE EXPENSE OF A UNIQUE, IMPORTANT AND HISTORICAL AREA.

On 7th February Coventry Council agreed the application for 550 houses on the Tamworth Road/Fivefield Road site subject to Reserved Matters and 106 payment agreements.

We have argued the reasons why this application should not proceed:-

Traffic surveys do not include all the sites within the area, they calculate the traffic from only three sites for a total of 1850 houses. They have not included Eastern Green (2,500 houses + industrial) Meggitts Burnaby Road (500 houses + industrial) Penny Park Lane (444 houses) and Scoping Plans for 300 houses in Allesley and a further 600 houses in Fivefield Road.
The traffic surveys conducted for the Amazon warehouse site drastically underestimate the number of HGV’s accessing Lyons Park, planning has since been passed for additional warehousing and a lorry park.

They have refused to increase the buffer zones surrounding the Ancient Woods contrary to advice from the Woodland Trust and Warwickshire Wildlife who have asked for a minimum 50m buffer.

The Ecological surveys conducted by the Developers underestimate the Ecological importance and content of the area and differs in content from the Warwickshire Biodiversity report (they survey this area every 3/4 years) and state “ The LWS remains one of the most biodiverse and attractive pockets of land within Coventry, with the wet woodlands among the best in Warwickshire. The habitats have changed very little and the LWS status remains intact. Large scale housing in the area would be detrimental to the site.”