We are in possession of the above document which requests any responses either by online questionnaire, e-mail, or letter and the closing date fro any correspondence is Friday 17th February 2017.

Firstly, I would like to advise that my wife and I have a very simple approach to this project, which given the potential significant effect it could have on us, please forgive us for responding from a position of not entertaining your questionnaire or strategy to achieve the desired result for the borough - we are just personally bitterly disappointed...allow us to explain.
1. My wife and I are both Solihull "Born & Bred" (as the saying goes) and as a result of spending 15 years living in Monkspath, it was an opportune time for us to move to a more rural area with the children coming of age and becoming independent with their own transport etc
2. Our search for a property with the objective of being in a rural setting but still in a community which has all the necessary facilities etc, resulted in us investing in our home in Balsall Common in January 2014
3. Naturally, as part of the usual searches through our solicitor at the time of purchase, one would expect to find out about planning applications, housing developments etc etc and even though it has now come to the surface this project has been in the melting pot for many years, it was not identified by our solicitor that the open fields of Barrett's Farm was in fact well and truly part of the future housing development for the borough. For your information, we only now have been advised the view from the rear of our property is the site for hundreds of new properties, which looking at the plans, they would actually be constructed immediately behind our garden fence - so the rural view would disappear in its entirety
4. The price we paid for the property was obviously reflected in the size and premier location of the house and it is very difficult to put a value on such a wonderful view overlooking countryside, but nevertheless, we felt the north facing rear garden was a very small price to pay for views looking over 200 acre farm which on record, did not have any documents filed for future development at the time of purchase. So it is extremely unfortunate that we have invested in a property in such well respected Lane in the borough, only to find the status will diminish greatly when the bulldozers move in...!!!
We acknowledge the borough needs to expand, especially with the continual development of the airport and the introduction of HS2, so houses need to be built somewhere and you will never please everyone. However, the impact this will have on our menial existence in society is significant...and we believe the sequence of events to date and the level of stress and cost we will endure over the next few years must be compensated in some way, or one can always live in hope the Barrett's Farm development is rejected and no houses will ever be built in our lifetime - unlikely though...we all know the decision is already made and the borough is just playing the game to make everyone feel as if they have a say in the matter...!?

Herewith are the issues we believe are gross negligence and probable costs etc involved...
1. Barrett's Farm is supposedly "green belt" which we presumed that all previous planning applications have "ALL" been dismissed as not practical for this reason, hence the land registry searches etc not declaring anything - The view over open fields was a key ingredient in our purchasing decision and we have paid an intangible price for this - We will therefore lose money on the re-sale when we move as we do not intend on staying in the property, as it will not ultimately be what we purchased and need to find a suitable alternative home...
2. Either someone has knowingly concealed this development for a long time so as to not create unrest until the project is ready to gather pace and all the preparation work is completed "OR" the council have purposely not updated the status of development so it would not be "flagged up" at the time of a solicitor investigating any potential issues...either way, this is gross negligence or simply a case of David & Goliath...!?
3. There will be a considerable pro-rata reduction in the value of our house value when selling, especially at a time when the new owners will know what is going to happen e.g. An opportunity for them to negotiate a better price - bearing in mind, to maintain our original objective of having a view from the rear of our property would mean having to move before the bulldozers move in, as it would be almost impossible to sell during the construction behind us...unless we were to accept an even more ridiculous offer to get out...!
4. We will incur significant costs in respect of estate agents fees, solicitors, stamp duty and general moving costs - stamp duty alone could be as high as £50K
5. We have invested over £150K during the last 3 years, believing it is our home for many years to come - this money will now be wasted and someone else will benefit from it...
6. The house we move to will be at a value higher than the pro-rata value of our current home because prices have increased over the last 3 years. In other words it could look something like this...
1. We paid £750K for the current property and a Zoopla valuation today suggests it would be approx £950K, however, we would probably have to take off £100K to find a buyer because the value is now lower with different planned surroundings
2. The house we move to will also have increased in value over the last 3 years, which means that we will have to pay for an equivalent property £950K, yet only receive £850K for our house and after investing £150K thinking it was going to be home for many years - this means we are into a negative equity situation of some £450K e.g.
1. Buy at £750K - Spend £150K (this money is now lost because we will not benefit from the investment)
2. Sell at £850K and not £950K, so a loss of £100K
3. The new property would be at full value of £950K, yet we only paid £750K for the house we expected to stay in...these three items total a negative impact £450K...!!!
I could continue with many more tangible and intangible costs, as well as detailing the levels of stress and energy required to sell and re-house ourselves sooner rather than later.

I think it is also important to note that I have personally endured a very serious illness over the last 12 months and still not fully recovered, together with awaiting one final operation in the next few months...we appreciate you are unable to deal with individual circumstances and that any ruling or proposal would be based on a same deal for all scenario, nevertheless, to say we believe we have been "deceived" is a tip of the iceberg in that we should have been informed of the plans at the time of purchase, which would have allowed us to either make an offer which would compensate us for the future development, or we could have walked away from the deal...

So in summary, we have been "sucked in" by the system with absolutely no communication whatsoever to date from the borough and councillors to say what they are going to do to compensate residents who are going to be affected by this...bearing in mind we have neighbour's on Waste Lane and Hodgetts Lane who are in the HS2 zone and we know financial agreements have been settled, or in the process of being sorted...so, until we know what the council is going to do for us, I'm afraid our vote is an obvious one in respect of what we think about the future needs of the borough should be...

We therefore suggest you consult with the people who are going to be inconvenienced financially, logistically and mentally by this development before you ask us to comment on the global issue...

To conclude, as we do not know the protocol involved in a dispute of this nature, we will adopt the same stance as you have given the residents and general public in requesting opinions etc by 17th February - If we do not receive your response to this communication by Friday 3rd March, we will engage our lawyers to act on our behalf in order to ensure we are being heard, with the objective of establishing a resolution as soon as possible...!