To whom it may concern,

I’m writing to object to the local plan, particularly with respect to sites BL1, BL2 and BL3 in and around Tidbury Green, Dickens Heath and Cheswick Green. The existing infrastructure (schools, surgeries, roads) is already struggling, even before the completion of residences already underway, e.g. near Stratford road. Much of the traffic from these villages commutes to the M42 J4, and as such creates gridlock during rush hour. Building more houses along these already busy routes is only going to exacerbate the problem, and demand to travel to the M42 is only going to increase with HS2. The narrow, rural road network cannot take further development and is already overloaded.

With particular reference to site BL1, this site will be unassociated, both visually and physically, with the surrounding villages which have clearly defined boundaries. This site will start to fill in the gaps between villages, removing the unique character of the area and destroying the connectivity between local wildlife sites and ancient woodland, as highlighted by Natural England. The BL1 site 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 the green belt and develop on brownfield land first.

I believe a full sustainability appraisal should have been carried out prior to site allocation, rather than trying to make the preselected site allocations fit the plan.