More threat of development in and around Earlswood

My last post on here was about a threat of development in the Solihull Borough part of Earlswood, and unfortunately this one will have the same theme as it appears that the Stratford District part of Earlswood now faces a similar risk. Stratford and Warwick District Councils are working together to produce a new South Warwickshire Local Plan to cover their combined geographic area. This plan will determine where, when and how housing and other development will occur up to the year 2050. It is at an early stage and currently a consultation is being undertaken on a number of options including the creation of new settlements and expansion of existing settlements.

Some of these options will affect the Earlswood area if taken forward. In recent weeks, since the consultation started, there has been much discussion on social media regarding Wood End being considered in the Local Plan as a possible site for a new settlement. The indirect effects of this are obvious for those of us who've witnessed changes in the local area since the Dickens Heath, Tidbury Green, etc developments over the last few decades.

There has been a "call for sites" that has resulted in several areas of land within the Earlswood area itself being put forward, mainly by developers. There is also a second "call for sites" currently underway alongside the consultation. These sites have yet to be assessed by the local authority for suitability for inclusion in the Local Plan as development locations, so are less concerning at this stage, despite covering a very large portion of Earlswood. For the latest details on these sites, see this page on the Local Plan website.

Call for sites up to early February.

More concerning is another option being considered for development around the edges of existing settlements (Issues S4 and S7 in Chapter 4), as the list of such settlements includes Earlswood. There are 22 "Small Settlement Locations", of which Earlswood is one, that have had analyses done "for intermediate scale, chiefly residential, development for between 50-500 homes in any one location". The analyses for Earlswood are in Appendix 2 of the South Warwickshire Settlement Analysis. Delving further into this, in the Technical Evidence documents, it appears that land at Earlswood under consideration in this option is a sizeable area to the east of Shutt Lane and Earlswood Common, which includes the National Trust's Old Moathouse Farm estate and Earlswood Moathouse Nature Reserve. The kind ladies who gifted their land to the National Trust for preservation as a "bird sanctuary" would be turning in their graves! The land to the east of Earlswood Common is known to have a population of Great Crested Newts.

"Small Settlement Location" at Earlswood

There is also mention of "M42 Widening – land either side of Junction 3a to help reduce congestion where the M40 joins the M42". There are ancient woodlands that adjoin the motorways there.

The consultation can be viewed at https://www.southwarwickshire.org.uk/swlp/issuesandoptions. If you have any comments to make on it, be sure to send them in before the deadline of March 6th!