We believe that site 413 (land off Blue Lake Road, Dorridge) should be omitted from the Local Plan as a site for residential development for the following reasons:
Greenbelt status
The land is greenbelt land and we believe this status should remain unchanged. We note that the Council now considers Site 413 to be a lower performing piece of greenbelt land under the Green Belt Assessment however the site was rejected for inclusion in the last Local Plan and we cannot see any reason for a change in opinion on the quality of the land.
We disagree with the Council's assessment of the visual sensitivity as Low within the Landscape Character Assessment. The land is open and is visible from several perspectives. It is visually pleasing and is currently farmed. The land contains historic oak trees and there is a public footpath through the area. This land gives this part of Dorridge its semi-rural character and is the first part of countryside that people in Dorridge come to. Whilst there is some ribbon development around the sides of the land, this is extremely low density, consisting of substantial properties on large plots.
Development is not in keeping with local character
The National Planning Policy Framework requires that residential development should "promote local character". That requirement would not be met for development on Site 413 in the context of the existing developed area.
Development of site 413 goes against the Council's Spatial Plan, the Local Plan and the Neighbourhood Plan.
According to the Spatial Plan, the thrust of the Spatial Strategy is for Solihull to remain an economically successful Borough through sustainable economic growth whilst sustaining its attractiveness and without undermining the qualities and defining characteristics of those places which attract people and investment to Solihull.
One of the objectives stated in the Draft Local Plan are to "conserve and enhance the qualities of the built, natural and historic environment that contribute to character and local distinctiveness and the attractiveness of the mature residential suburbs and the rural area"
According to the Council's Policy P15 - (Development) proposals will be expected to meet the following key principles: "conserves and enhances local character, distinctiveness and streetscape quality"
The Neighbourhood Plan sets out clear principles around development of the Green Belt in Policy VC1. Under that policy "any development must be in harmony with the rural character of the villages' surroundings and sit well in the landscape." Development of Site 413 at anything near the density proposed would fundamentally contravene that policy.
Policy D1 in the Neighbourhood Plan goes on to set out clear principles around character and appearance of development. In particular, it establishes the following criteria:
o Development should be in harmony with the village character and sit well within the landscape;
o Development layouts should be characteristic of the surrounding area;
o Development should be of a density characteristic of the area; and
o Development should be in keeping with the scale, siting and appearance of nearby buildings
The site is bordered by Grove Road, Knowle Wood Road, Blue Lake Road and Norton Green Road. Much of this area is known informally as the Dorridge or Golden Triangle. Properties on these roads in many cases are distinctive and individual, consisting of substantial family homes. Many are period properties set in large plots -where individual houses have been demolished, they have been replaced by modern family homes of a similar size or larger. The distinctive character of this area stems from the type of properties as well as the semi-rural location in which they are situated (the greenbelt land). The recent judicial review relating to development on Alderbrook Road in Solihull made it clear that the character of the the town's mature suburbs and by implication rural area need to be respected.
On any objective assessment, development of Site 413, which is currently surrounded by low-density development sitting sympathetically around a well-established Green Belt boundary, scores very low against the above criteria. There are several "Red Sites" in the KDBH area which would objectively score much higher.
Other factors
Blue Lake Road and Norton Green Road are small semi-rural roads that are not capable of taking large amounts of traffic. Blue Lake Road in particular has a bend which makes it difficult for homeowners to exit their properties safely and this would be even more difficult with greater volumes of traffic.
Public transport - accessibility by bus is assessed by SMBC as being very high however current bus routes are some distance from the site and the surrounding roads would not be suitable for buses.
Although the site is fairly close to Dorridge Station, people will not walk to the station particularly when under time pressure. We live on Blue Lake Road and often still drive to the station when we have a train to catch as do our neighbours. There is already a problem with train users parking on Dorridge Road and surrounding roads and although there are plans to increase the amount of parking at Dorridge Station, there will still not be enough parking with more users and particularly if parking is on a paid basis, there will continue to be overspill parking on local roads.
Our concerns about the process
Site 413 is currently excluded from the Local Plan. The Council has invited comments from interested parties as to whether the site should continue to be omitted from the Plan. However, we understand that the owner/promoter of Site 413 is already engaging with the Council about potential development of the site and has provided the Council with several versions of its concept plans. The landowner/promoter also shows a vision plan for the site development on its website and a potential development even has a name "Oak Green". We therefore have questions about the transparency of the discussions taking place given that at this point that land is excluded from the Local Plan. We would like to know whether the proposal to change the status of Site 413 to amber stems from pressure by the landowner/promoter and would like reassurances that in selecting amber sites, the Council has performed the same amount of due diligence on all the sites that were previously omitted from inclusion in the Local Plan. In particular, there would appear to be other sites where housing development of the kind needed would be more in keeping with the density and character of the local area for example Site 207.
Summary
We believe that there is a strong, objective case not to include Site 413 as a site for residential development within the Local Plan. Exclusion of the site from the Local Plan continues to be correct. Development of this site is not in keeping with the character of the local area and therefore would go against national and local planning statements and also the Neighbourhood Plan which following the result of the election on 14 March will now be adopted.