More than 1,300 new homes plan for land near Leamington and Warwick

The Warwick Gates-based Gallagher Estates has applied to Warwick District Council to build three new estates - some of which could include new schools, shops and children’s play areas - close to Europa Way and Harbury Lane.

The largest of the estates would include 720 houses, while the other two would have 370 and 220 respectively.

In its applications, the company points out the developments’ proximity to shopping areas, schools, higher education institutions and leisure and recreation centres in Leamington and Warwick.

The application also mentions the area’s good bus links to the two towns and their train stations and the fact that all are within a network of walking and cycling paths.

The company has stated: “In the light of this, it is concluded that the site offers significant benefits in achieving sustainable development”.

But concerns have already been raised at this early stage. Independent Warwick District councillor Tony Heath, who represents Whitnash and part of Warwick Gates, said: “Unless the infrastructure is improved before the developments take shape, the roads will not be able to cope.

“I can see minor improvements happening, but whether they will be sufficient, I don’t know.”

Cllr Heath said his “biggest fear” is that the district council will only include new housing to the south of Leamington in its Local Plan, rather than the area to the north of the town.

He said: “All the housing planned for Milverton and north Leamington has been deleted from the Local Plan. There is proof that there is space there for development.

“The council seems hell bent on putting all the housing in the south, despite this area only having two accesses into Leamington, via Lower Avenue Road and Princes Drive.”

He added: “There will have to be more positive infrastructure plans in place than there were when Warwick Gates was built. That was a fiasco.

“Whitnash has had a lot of pressure to bear, for example parking around the schools. Any more pressure might be too much.”

Leader of the district council, Cllr Michael Doody (Con, Radford Semele), said it was unlikely that the proposals put forward by Gallagher Estates would be considered before the council agrees on its Local Plan, which is due to be discussed at a meeting on Tuesday June 4.

But he said: “If the developments were considered to be reasonable for these sites, it may solve the problems the council has with regards to target the Government has given us to provide a ‘land bank’ for housing over a five-year period.

“At the moment, we have a land bank for 18 months, so we are short of development land. But that’s no different to any of the other councils in Warwickshire.”

Cllr Doody was unwilling to put a figure on the number of new houses for the district to be included in the Local Plan, saying: “It’s not a simple straight-forward case of ‘this is the number’. It depends on a number of other issues.”

He added: “The one thing that’s important to any application that’s considered is that the infrastructure levy will have to be paid, whether it’s before the Local Plan is finalised, or after.”

Anyone can submit a comment on the applications until June 10. Visit www.warwickdc.gov.uk/wdc/planning and search for the applications using the reference numbers w/13/0603, w/13/0606 and w/13/0607.