I would like to object to the proposed site plan BL1 on the following :

Believe the plan/amount of houses should be recalcalculated due to covid/change of circumstances to which people now work from home, town centres now unused, which could be converted into living accommodation.

Site 4, west of Dickens Heath (also referenced as BL1) is in a high performing Green Belt area, which has not been taken into consideration in the Sustainability Appraisal. Central Government Policy is to protect green belt and develop Brownfield sites first.

The Sustainability Appraisal tries to prove that this Site is sustainable when it clearly is not, owing to the numerous mitigation measures proposed to try and make it sustainable, some of which are unachievable.

The Council have not undergone a proper scrutiny of all other more sustainable sites in a sequential test that would have fewer constraints if the Sustainability Appraisal had been carried out correctly in the first place, before the site allocation, rather than trying to make the pre-selected sites fit the Plan

This proposed development will be un-associated, both, both visually and physically, with the award-winning Village of Dickens Heath. The character and setting of the Village will be adversely affected, sense of community and identity compromised. There are strong defendable boundaries to the village, being the canals, woodlands and ancient hedgerows. This site falls outside the village's built up boundary.

Site 4 is surrounded by Local Wildlife Sites and Ancient Woodland. Although the Council state that to mitigate for the proposed development the area can be enhanced, they have not consdered the very important connectivity of these important ecological sites. Natural England state that 'ensure current ecological networks are not compramised, and future improvements in habitat connectivity are not prejudiced'. Daily we have wildlife making its way across our garden as a thoroughfare to the top of Birchy Close.

Traffic and Village centre parking. The Traffic Study does propose some works to improve the congestion in peak hours but the situation will be further exacerbated by the huge number of new homes proposed in the Blythe area and South Shirley. The Council only propose to solve the Village Centre parking problem by controlling some on-street parking which will not solve the existing problem and will only be made worse with more development. The narrow, rural road network cannot take further development and is already overloaded.

The proposed development is not within a recognised walking distance from the VillageCentre facilities, so further adds to the un-sustainability of the development. The Council
state that a new footpath will be needed to the private road of Birchy Close to reduce the walking distance but this is legally unachievable. They suggest that a new bus route down Birchy Leasowes Lane could be provided but how will a bus exit the junction with Dickens Heath Road safely? At this junction the ancient woodland either side of this junction would inhibit any road improvement which has not been recommended. All the proposed footpaths are welcomed and should have been put in place many years ago to facilitate the extensions of the existing Village. The Village already acts as a commuter settlement with higher than average car ownership. Additional housing will only exacerbate the use of the car contributing to global warming.
Although the flooding report states that Site 4 is mostly in flood Zone 1, this cannot be true, our garden (inc neighbours) are regularly flooded, and not just in the winter making them unuseable, so cannot understand why it is rated as Zone 1. The sports fields which are directly behind/at the side of our garden is not useable most of the year due to flooding.

Please relook at the proposal, and reconsider what other areas are far better suited for development.