South Warwickshire local plan consultation
Preferred options guidance 18 Jan 2025
The new south Warwickshire local plan is very important for the future of the district as it will designate new housing and employment land up to 2050 as well as influencing the types of houses built, biodiversity etc.
Therefore, we encourage all residents to engage with the current consulta@on at South Warwickshire Local Plan (https://www.southwarwickshire.org.uk/swlp/preferred-options.cfm) It’s worth scrolling down and watching the intro video.
Since the plan is long and complex, unless you want to read it all, please look at the coloured boxes in the “How to View and Comment” section. Here you can click on the topics that most interest you. For example:
- In the first green box, you could click on “green belt” which would take you to section 4.9 that gives background info, responses to the last (I&O) consultation, the proposed policy direction in an orange box, a pink box to click on to comment, and a justification section that links to the evidence (including 172 page Green Belt Review Stage 1) 1
- To comment on a specific site, click on ‘spatial growth’ in the first green box which takes you to section 4.1. Then for Strategic growth locations, scroll down to Table 5 for sites starting with ‘SG’. For Potential new settlements, which are the larger, yellow coloured sites on the map, scroll down to section 4.2.
- In the second box (dark red) of the start page, you could click on “Providing the Right Size of Homes” which takes you to section 5.1 of the consultation. You can then say whether you agree or disagree that all new homes should comply with minimum space standards and a certain percentage should be designed to be wheelchair user friendly2.
The first time you comment, you will need to give your email address and a password. Choose “Yes” if you broadly agree with the draft policy (direction), “no” if you don’t, and “other” if it’s missing the point!
- Note that as a Draft Policy Direction, this Green Belt question is relatively vague as neither the government’s new ‘grey belt’ definition nor the to-be-done stage 2 of the green belt review are included. So, you’re just asked to comment on the orange box. Perhaps the most important point is whether you agree that “if there are clear sustainability benefits to utilising one or more Green Belt locations, then this will form the basis of an argument that “exceptional circumstances” exist to justify releasing that land from the Green Belt.” Sustainability benefits mainly mean sites close to facilities, railway stations etc so there would be less congestion & climate emissions compared with a non-green belt site. ↩︎
- Note that as a draft policy, it’s a blue box; so it’s more precise than the draft policy direction. Surprisingly, the minimum space standards are just guidance, so developers don’t always follow them, which is why this section suggests inclusion in the local plan. ↩︎