Q2 Site Selection Methodology
The Council should be praised for listening to the residents of South Shirley who have demonstrated the importance of the informal open space of site 13 which has been removed from the plan. This area should now be made into a formal public open space.
However the revised plan still proposes a totally iniquitous and disproportionate 38% of Solihull's additional housing needs concentrated in the Shirley South area. The effect will be to completely change the character of the area from a semi-rural location to an urban sprawl.
The potential of other areas in the Borough that can absorb some of this capacity should be more ardently examined. I know that houses are needed but they need to be far more evenly allocated and close to the employment growth areas of the borough.
There isn't equal weighting given to the natural environment that borders Shirley. Sites 4, 12 & 26 are areas of biodiversity and habitat of value, an important area for local wildlife in Shirley. We have lost too many of these areas already.

Building houses on sites 4, 12 & 26 is contrary to the objective of protecting key gaps between urban areas and settlements. Sites 4, 12 & 26 provide a valuable green, healthy area separating the areas of Shirley, Cheswick Green and the ever expanding Dickens Heath Village. To virtually adjoin these areas with more developments would turn a well balanced Mature Suburb into a vast urban sprawl and would destroy the semi rural feeling of the area and be detrimental to the identity and community of the areas.
Developing residential buildings in the town centre makes good sense especially in terms of offering good transport connections and supporting the local economy in the town centre. However, the concentration of settlements to the south of Shirley does not make any sense. The Shirley area is already subject to a huge amount of congestion which affects the whole of the Stratford Road from the M42 junction and all arterial routes, including Dog Kennel Lane, Tanworth Lane, Shakespeare Drive, Blackford Lane, Haslucks Green Road and Bills Lane. Some of the local rat runs such as Stretton Road constantly has drivers coming along the road at ridiculous speeds, in an area with two schools and a large elderly community. The addition of thousands of new homes will compound congestion and traffic flow to a catastrophic level and also increase rat run traffic.
In terms of benefitting from HS2, I can understand the logic of building residential
properties in the vicinity of UK Central, but if properties were built around Shirley, residents would need to access both the A34 and the M42, worsening what are already congested roads.

The loss of green belt around the existing estates of Shirley, increased traffic volumes and decreasing air quality will have to be borne by residents of Shirley South. The development of these sites would bring about an increase in urban sprawl. I do not consider that full utilisation of Brownfield sites across the West Midlands Combined Authority has been made. Sites to the east of Solihull should be looked at with greater intensity. There is greater opportunity to develop infrastructure around the edge of the smaller conurbations, offering the opportunity to provide better public transport links and connect more readily and conveniently with HS2. There is less risk of merging of settlements with distinctive identities, as the gap between settlements is far larger. These sites are also closer to the growth areas of JLR, the airport the NEC and HS2. Put the houses where the employment areas are, not miles away in Shirley.

Also, the town centre offers an opportunity for higher density housing more than anywhere else in the Borough. The benefit to the community should be put before property developers.

The government has stated that housing should concentrate on high density smaller, affordable homes, such as terrace, mews and flats. The footprint of these is much smaller than large detached houses. Developing sites in this manner close to the employment growth areas in the east of the Borough would alleviate the need to develop important green belt locations such as sites 4, 12 & 26 preserving an area of diverse eco systems, full of wildlife and of immense value to the community.