SOLIHULL COUNCIL'S DRAFT HOUSING PLAN
Dear Sir
We wish to make the following comments concerning the above for you to consider.
GREEN BELT
At a time when government are announcing through many avenues of media that GREEN BELT land must be preserved at all costs it seems that SMBC have totally ignored this announcement and in doing so will close the ever decreasing gap between Balsall Common and Coventry and given the continuation of this policy along with the proposals Coventry have suggested, it appears that the GREEN BELT gap will be obliterated completely, which is totally unacceptable.
BALSALL COMMON CENTRE
While your plan intends to increase the dwellings in Balsall Common by well in excess of 30% there is absolutely no mention of your intention of increasing the facilities of the centre of Balsall Common. It is a fact that while the number of dwellings in Balsall Common has drastically increased over the last twenty years there has been no attempt by SMBC to increase the facilities. In fact most recently yet another bank has announced it intends to close its branch. The parking situation even with the increased parking facility behind the shops is still not enough and there are times now when it is very dangerous to try and get out of a parking position onto Station Road.
There are nowhere near enough variety of shops to service the existing residents of Balsall Common let alone an increase of the magnitude you intend and there are no public toilets, which one would think is a necessity with the increase of people your plan will attract.
TYPE OF HOUSING
We understand that you aim to make 50% of the new homes "affordable" even though one of the new sites under construction in Balsall Common has already found great difficulty in selling the "affordable" housing on the site because of the price. Surely it is common sense to position "affordable housing" in an area with in the borough where the surrounding properties and therefore the new properties fall into a price range that make the price affordable, rather in an area like Balsall Common where the prices are not conducive the "affordable" market
TRAFFIC
The largest site for Balsall Common is obviously the Barretts Lane Farm development but at this time no mention of how the site would be accessed is available. We would ask you to consider that Meeting House Lane must not be used in any form either directly or via Oxhayes Close or Sunnyside Lane or Barretts Lane, because it is already used as a bypass to the A452 even though you have had a number of speed bumps installed. Meeting House lane does not have pavements on either side of it other than a very small section of approximately 100metres and in fact it only has one pavement on one side of the Road from Station Road down to Sunnyside Lane which makes it a very dangerous road on which to encourage a very large percentage increase in foot traffic, a very large amount of which would be school children, if your if your plan comes to fruition.
If permission for the Barretts Lane site is given please consider the access to the new site to be a feeder Road off the current island positioned at the junction of Station Road and Hall Meadow Drive and taking it through to at least Kelsey Lane. This would not only eradicate any further problems along Meeting House Lane but also complete the extension to Hall Meadow Drive which would provide a complete bypass to Balsall Common Centre if it were extended to the island at the junction with the A452 and A4177.