I am in receipt of your letter of 8 December 2016 giving notice that our property is adjacent to the Proposed Housing Allocation, 8 Hampton Lane, Knowle. I would like to put forward my opinion and objection to the proposals, which after discussion with many people and neighbours are in line with general opinion.

The proposal for 1050 new homes in Knowle is completely disproportionate with the proposed deployment of new homes elsewhere in the Borough. I have enjoyed living in Knowle for 45 years and have seen many changes, not all to the benefit of the community. However, this proposed expansion will destroy the village atmosphere and make it little more than part of the Birmingham urban sprawl. 50% affordable housing is far too high and will only serve to lower the standard of the existing environment. I believe Government guidelines state that 25% affordable housing is a reasonable objective and see little need for this to be so excessively exceeded.

The present infrastructure will not support this number of homes. New or improved schooling will need to be provided, additional car parking provided, improvement to access roads and additional medical care are a just few of the major considerations.

The current preferred option put forward by Solihull MBC includes just 2 development areas. The Arden Triangle and Hampton Road. This is ridiculous as the majority of the future generated traffic will be centred on the Warwick Road and High Street. Hampton Road is already too busy and its junction with Wootton Close, Arden Vale Road and the existing Football Pitch is an accident waiting to happen. Current street parking in Hampton Road creates poor visibility and interrupted traffic flow. The junction of the High Street with Hampton Road and Lodge Road is a notorious bottleneck. All of these problems will only be exacerbated with the additional homes.

Careful planning of the Arden Triangle could provide The New Schooling, a new Car park and medical centre. There would still be adequate space for the proposed development of up to 750 new homes. Access would be from Station Road and The Warwick Road. If this development is accepted it should be the limit to the development within Knowle itself. Fair use of the money derived from the sale of the Council owned land, and any Section 106 agreement would cover the cost of rebuilding the necessary infrastructure. The remaining homes should be built to the West in say Bentley Heath, where access would be via Widney Manor Road into Solihull, rather than the Warwick Road and motorway connection via the A34 (J4). Additional shopping could be provided together with other essential infrastructure facilities that are clearly missing at present. This would relieve the pressure on Knowle village, with its woefully inadequate parking; it would also be convenient to Widney Manor railway station.

With regards to the Hampton Road Proposal, this should have taken the form of 3 completely separate proposals. Each should be considered independently of one another. If planning permission were to be granted on the Football pitch and woodland, it should be up to the football club to seek an alternative site. The development of the football pitch itself could possibly be accepted, as it would not extend beyond the existing developed frontage of Hampton Road and would form a boundary limit to any future development to the East, within the Green Belt. I note that the plans for the football pitch also include the cricket pitch in one of the documents. This is very misleading and clearly shows that this proposed site is just the thin edge of the wedge. The football club have failed to maintain or improve their existing facilities, so I fail to understand how they can hope to maintain a very much larger complex. The owners of the woodland adjacent to the football pitch are currently felling many trees; I trust that this is being carefully monitored by the Council to ensure that no specimen or mature trees are felled and that TPO's have been put in place.

The creation of a commercial sports complex on the land off Hampton Road, by the canal, would be totally inappropriate within the Green Belt. The proposed site includes inadequate car parking, and the proposed increase in commercial activities is not acceptable within the Green Belt. A visit to the Old Silhillians Club at Copt Heath, on a Sunday morning, will quickly demonstrate the effect that the construction of a similar sports facility will have on the immediate area. There will be car parking all over the proposed new development and down Hampton Road. The Old Silhillian's site includes vastly superior car parking, yet cars are frequently parked on the verges and down Lady Byron Lane. One must also question whether yet another sports complex is actually required. The huge costs in running such a complex will necessitate large scale non sports related activities including: Bar& dining, Conferencing, Discos and other fund raising activities, all within the Green Belt. The use of Section 106 money for the building of this complex would be totally inappropriate; it should be for the benefit of the general local population, not just for the members of a local sports club.

The development of Thacker's nursery and the fields fronting onto Hampton Road, opposite Grimshaw Hall, is an unnecessary extension of the village into the Green Belt. This land has been deliberately neglected in recent years to aid an application for residential housing. It is basically good quality agricultural land which forms a sloping site down to Purnell's Brook. The lower area liable to flooding, and the drainage run off from the new site would greatly exacerbate the problem. . The development of this sloping/elevated site would have a devastating effect on the surrounding and adjoining housing. The area is a haven for wildlife including bats, badgers, birds of prey and other protected species. This land should be brought back into agriculture, rather than being left vacant in the hope of future development. If this proposal succeeds it will encourage more land owners to neglect vulnerable sites, in the hope of getting residential/commercial development.

It is my opinion that Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council have failed in their duty to fully consider all possible sites and have taken the easy option of adopting two professionally submitted proposals, to the exclusion of all other options.
There are several sites within the Knowle, Dorridge and Bentley Heath area which have been put up for consideration and overlooked. Inevitably future planning applications will be made on some of these which will be difficult to refuse, as they are eminently more suitable for development than the selected sites. This will result in the continuing urbanisation of the area and further increase the pressure on local facilities.

I therefore urge Solihull MBC to change its proposals and limit the Hampton Road proposed site to the Football pitch only.