Alternative Site Suggested (New Site)

I think the proposed changes in the Dickens Heath etc area will remove our green areas and we will end up merging into one site. The infrastructure was not developed to deal with this and Dickens Heath Village was never meant to be the size it is and already has a negative impact on travel. Much as I dislike the idea I think a purpose built new village with appropriate planned infrastructure would be the best solution.

Dickens Heath / Tidbury Green
While I support the development of these areas, the current preferred area to the West of Dickens Heath would result in the closure of several important and well supported local amenities/businesses, while the land to the south (Refined Parcel 73) would be more sustainable in terms of transportation, access to existing services, would not result in the closure of businesses and while it would bring Dickens Heath and Tilbury Green closer together, there would still be a strong enforceable boundary, and it would prevent Solihull/Bromsgrove/Birmingham merging along the Western boundary.

Dear Sirs

Solihull Local Plan Review - Draft Local Plan Consultation re Hampton Road Knowle and Station/Warwick Road Knowle

I would like to object most strongly to the proposed developments for Knowle and feel that none of them should be supported. I feel you have failed to inform the residents of Knowle of the proposed developments. In my own area I suggest that you sent your letter dated 8 December 2016 to only about a dozen homes immediately adjoining the site. Yet the addition of so many new homes in Knowle will wreck the semi rural character of the Village and affect all of Knowle residents. It is likely that nearly all the occupiers of these homes would be commuting by cars (possibly 2 per household) to their places of work some miles away as there are very few employment opportunities in the area.

Green Belt I believe these sites are in the Green Belt. If Solihull MBC is happy to sacrifice existing green belt and prefers concentrated development rather than dispersed in-fill development, then surely it would be sense to build an entirely new Village, similar to the development of Dickens Heath with schools, library etc?

Garden Village With the Governments recent initiative for these, Solihull MBC would be far better putting all their proposed concentrated development for a new village, homes 6000+, with all new infrastructure and facilities. Somewhere between Balsall Common and Hampton-in-Arden could be a location with good Road/Rail access to the Cities of both Birmingham and Coventry and other major towns of Leamington Spa and Stratford-upon-Avon and the Midlands Motorway Network. There seem many options when looking at a map of the area. Could Cheswick Green be increased to form a lovely Garden Village?

Hampton Road Sites None of this development should happen as the land is Green Belt and the infrastructure is unsuitable for such developments. This area should have been treated as 3 distinct sites and each one should be individually evaluated as all are in the existing Green Belt and access for each will be separate off Hampton Road. These are to the East, the existing football club/cricket club and Grimshaw wood; to the West, the former nursery and farm land; to the West the area around the fishermans car park and canal proposed as a new site for the football club.
If the football club wish to move, their existing site could be considered for development taking into account the usual planning criteria. However, the additional traffic caused by the proposed housing will make Hampton Road a bottleneck. Other infrastructure such as schools and doctors are already stretched and I understand all Knowle Schools are oversubscribed. If the proposed new site for the football club is considered it should be noted that this would be commercial development in the Green Belt. There are many other under used good sports facilities including football clubs within a 2 mile radius of Knowle.
The former Thackers Nursery site and agricultural land to the West of Hampton Road is the natural boundary to the Green belt and should remain so. The proposal for so many houses would make the traffic additions to Hampton Road impossible/impassable and with worse bottlenecks. The suggestion of cycling as a major means of transport is ridiculous - on Warwick Road where there are cycle lanes, I see about 1 cyclist a week using them. The UK weather is not conducive to cycling apart for as a recreation. This site is too far from the Village to be walkable for most people and there is not currently a bus service on Hampton Road. Hence we would need further parking facilities in Knowle or these new residents would 'shop' in other areas.

Arden relocation and Large Housing development This should not happen. Whilst a new purpose built school would be nice, this is again development in the Green Belt. Perhaps the school should consider incremental rebuilding within the existing site, as their 6th form centre.
The proposed housing here is vast and in the Green Belt. It should not happen. The increased traffic on Warwick Road and Station Road would create bottle necks and wreck the beautiful heart we have in Knowle. Clearly the infrastructure could not cope with such a development.

I have spoken to many friends in Knowle and I know my feelings above are in line with the majority of Knowle residents. However, many had no idea about these plans.

Yours sincerely

Please find attached my comments in response to the invitation to comment upon the Draft Local plan.

COMMENTS ON SOLIHULL DRAFT LOCAL PLAN
February 2017

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to the current consultation on the Solihull Draft Plan. My comments are specifically regarding the proposals for Balsall Common and focus upon:

1) The issue of the disproportionate allocation of new housing to Balsall Common, compared with both Knowle and Dorridge, both of which have well established town centres, unlike Balsall Common.

2) The need to develop a comprehensive Plan for Balsall Common which considers improvements to the infrastructure necessary to support any proposed increase in population.

3) The clear logic and evidence for accommodating all proposed housing on the Barrett's Lane site and not developing any of the other suggested sites.

It appears that the number of houses allocated to Balsall Common is disproportionately large given the size of allocations to other locations within the Borough, which have a greater capacity to accommodate sizable developments and which also have better infrastructure to support growth than Balsall Common. Both Knowle and Dorridge have sizeable and well established "town centres" which are cap.able of supporting additional demands, unlike Balsall Common which has a small, restricted and inadequate centre. Parking at Balsall Common centre is also significantly limited and the opportunity to utilize the former Partco site at the rear of the existing shops has been lost with the development of housing, which is currently under construction.

Similarly the transportation and public transport links to are vastly superior to Balsall Common, with the former being much better served and more frequently served by trains and both have more frequent bus services. Also proximity to the M42 is better at both Dorridge and Knowle.

The exercise currently in hand is clearly focused on housing allocations and there appears to be very little evidence of any rigorous or conclusive thought having been given to the broader planning issues and consequences of potentially increasing the housing stock by, up to 1150 new homes, in terms of the impact on existing services and infrastructure within Balsall Common. There needs to be a more comprehensive approach to the future planning and development of Balsall Common alongside the current single focus upon housing allocations. It is essential that the current process include, simultaneous to the consideration of optional housing sites, appropriate discussion and a comprehensive examination of the improvements to infrastructure necessary to support any growth in the housing stock and population, as well as securing improvements for current residents.

I am aware that there has been consideration within some of the developers early schematic plans of location of "open space' and "additional schools" and the like, but again, a much more strategic and comprehensive contextual approach needs to be adopted. There is a danger in the presumption that the impact of additional housing can be met within the finally designated housing areas as many of the impacts will be felt well beyond the boundaries of the new housing sites. Developers will obviously offer planning gains within their proposals, possibly to minimize expectations placed upon them by Section 106 agreements and planning approval conditions, but again such altruistic offerings are likely only to benefit their own proposal and we need to return to the consequences of additional housing upon the whole and entire settlement both existing and proposed.

Unless the issue of the impact of the proposed developments upon the existing and projected infrastructure is properly analysed and solutions identified and detailed, enlargement of the settlement, at the scale envisaged, will be rather like building an inverted pyramid, the base of which is ever increased whilst the grounded apex becomes ever more unstable, with inevitable and predictable consequences.

Thirdly, regarding the sites preferred by the LPA, I'd offer the following comments:

The Barrett's Lane site (Reference 33 /244 Barrett's Lane Farm, BC Meriden 50.65 Forms part of amalgamated site 1002) is easily the most appropriate and feasible site to accommodate the entire allocation. It scores well in terms of its development potential in the Green Belt Assessment: Appendix F : Overall Score Map. Similarly, it is supported by development potential in terms of proximity to transport links, (particularly if the Balsall Common by-pass is completed) as well as access to other existing facilities. The location close to the railway station is consistent with the views expressed in the current 2017 White Paper on Housing and rational regarding the current thinking and policy on sustainable housing, which Balsall Common desperately needs.

Reinforcing the appropriateness of development at the Barrett's Lane site, the Landscape Assessment of Sub-Area 5 (The Balsall Common Eastern Fringe) (on page 42) and the locus of the Barrett's Lane proposals, identifies the area as being lower in landscape quality, with an overall assessment of only "medium".


The Frog Lane proposal (Reference 75 /12 Land at Frog Lane) scores similarly in Appendix F : Overall Score Map. However some aspects of the Green Belt Assessment: Appendix G : Highest Score Plan identifying site RP59 with a score of 3 (the highest category) for certain categories of assessment.

However, the location of the site, which is some significant way from the current village centre and even further from the railway station and other key facilities, raises additional questions about its suitability. Presumably the existing road (Frog Lane) would need to be upgraded and given the relatively small number of houses (the site is only 5.44 hectares) this may not justify the investment? It is also presumably, because of its isolated location, not an ideal location for affordable housing and would generate extra and vehicular movements on inappropriate roads.

Also any development in this direction opens the probability of further incursions into the Green Belt in a direction which is counter-intuitive to development around rail stations.

The proposal to develop 800+ houses at Grange Farm is fundamentally flawed in a number of respects. In the Green Belt Assessment Appendix F: Overall Score Map the Grange Farm site scores 7, which is higher than the Barrett's Lane, Meeting House Lane and Windmill Lane Sites. Together with fact that the Grange Farm site is further from current facilities makes it difficult to understand why it would be considered. At the exhibition by potential developers (held at St Peters Church Hall) much was made of the intentions to offer "infrastructure" alongside the development. The attraction of "infrastructure" at Grange Farm needs to be very closely examined and rigorously tested within the context of the entire village (as discussed above), in so much as a sub-centre at a location which is isolated from current infrastructure, could create additional problems for both the existing facilities and the transport network. It would simply be providing facilities in the wrong place.

In addition, the commentary contained in the Landscape Assessment (page 38) on Sub-Area 4c (which is the area to the west of Balsall Common) describes the Landscape Character Sensitivity of this sub-area as High. It goes on to state: "The sub-area has clear legibility and is an attractive rural landscape with distinctive landscape features including the several historic areas that are intimate along with the well treed River Blythe corridor. The landscape is generally in good condition".

The Report goes on to note: "This sub-area would typically have an overall very low landscape capacity to accommodate change. Overall, this character area would be able to accommodate only very restricted areas of new development, which would need to be of an appropriate type, scale and form, and in keeping with the existing character and local distinctiveness of the area. Any new development should not result in the loss of the inherently rural character and should maintain the dispersed settlement pattern of the area".

As an aside, it's interesting and understandable that "busy roads" are identified as a landscape detractor, but it serves to reinforce that fact that additional development in this area would aggravate the traffic issues to the west of the village, which would not benefit from the by-pass.

Clearly the Landscape Assessment rates the quality of the western fringe (including the Grange Farm site) as higher than the eastern fringe (and the Barrett's Lane site). Also, the Assessment rates the western fringe as being more sensitive to change than the eastern fringe. Consequently the conclusion must be that of the two sites, the eastern fringe (including the Barrett's Lane) site would be preferred for development.

Beyond the Landscape Assessment and back to the issues discussed above regarding infrastructure and the need for a comprehensive planning approach to the development of Balsall Common, I would strongly reiterate the need to debate the capacity of the existing village in terms of infrastructure, alongside the consideration of the housing locations, which needs to be expressed in a village masterplan as (part of) the context for the new housing proposals! I've not found any debate about the fundamental questions, for example, about what sort of village / settlement Balsall Common wants to be in the future? The danger exists that we are deciding significant detail before we have determined the overall context or product! It's interesting to note that included in the Evidence Base is the masterplan for the central area of Solihull, which is clearly being used as both the context for future developments as well as providing instructions to the detail decisions that will be made.