Please see attached our views on the Solihull Draft Local Plan for consideration.

We are primarily commenting on impacts on Balsall Common, but there are themes that are likely to be common to other areas.

Solihull Local Plan - consultation response, relating to Balsall Common only.
The suggested locations for additional housing appear to balance the need for housing and retaining the village feel. The exception is perhaps the Barrett's Farm site, which is substantial and a reasonable expectation is that this would materially change the character and centre of the village, given the influx of new villagers. Partial development of that area would seem more proportionate.
These proposed developments will place increased burden on transport and village facilities.
To increase acceptability of these developments, existing local residents need to feel investment is being made in their community. Therefore infrastructure improvements must come before housing to give residents feeling of spare capacity. Local constraints should be addressed, e.g. traffic, movements around schools, parking in village centre, before the new residents arrive.
Local railway stations are currently highly utilised with parking overspilling onto local roads. Supporting sustainable travel is an important objective and there needs to be substantial improvement in connecting transport and parking facilities to support increasing village population. While Network Rail is a statutory consultee, it may be more effective to develop options for improvement to have direct engagement with the Route to reflect that funding is increasingly being directed through local channels. This early engagement e.g. with Network Rail Western Route Managing Director to secure funding for station improvements ahead of housing development will be essential to avoid further overstretching of the current facilities. It is also important that these local improvements are not deferred or delayed due to HS2 developments that are planned at some time in the future.
When considering the new school facilities we would like to see broader community needs to be considered, e.g. flexible, divisible spaces with high quality resources. This may include auditoriums that could support local groups, provide local cinema and other youth projects. This may allow the release of other smaller village facilities by consolidating into a community space that has sufficiently regular use to support additional services, e.g. a cafe, or community advice services.