Please say no to Gateway proposal

I would like to register our further objection to the Coventry and Warwickshire Gateway application and ask all of you, in particular those of you considering Gateway, please take a look at the bigger picture. Baginton, Kenilworth and Old Milverton north of Leamington all stand to lose their green belt land.

Looking at the Local Plan Preferred Options, there appears to be a gravitational pull towards the West Midlands Conurbation resulting in urban sprawl and neighbouring towns and villages merging into one another. The local plan is being drawn in ever closer to Coventry, sucked in by the LEP.

Coventry Airport expansion, the ambition of Coventry Airport Limited, is leading to a wholesale consuming of green belt in Warwick district. Baginton is in danger of being swallowed up by Coventry, swiftly followed by Bubbenhall and Stoneleigh and then Old Milverton and Blackdown parishes.

The Gateway site is to be sold by Coventry City Council to Sir Peter Rigby, owner of Coventry Airport. Rigby has been a member of the Coventry & Warwickshire LEP since its foundation and its chairman since August. The decision to back the Gateway shows that the LEP is heading in the wrong direction led by the personal ambitions of its chairman. The LEP has taken the wrong strategy by giving too much prominence to the Gateway site. The choice of Gateway developer Sir Peter Rigby as chairman of the LEP caused outrage at the time.

The replacement of a private sector-led ‘property advisory group’ with a public sector-led ‘planning advisory group’ has resulted in the skewing of the local plan. The LEP says this is because planning is one of the biggest obstacles to growth. The new group chaired by Coventry City Labour councillor Lynnette Kelly (portfolio city development) clearly only sees the potential benefits to Coventry without any consideration of the cost to Warwick district.

Warwick District Council must not allow itself to be sucked in to the West Midlands and should concentrate sustainable economic growth south of Leamington at Heathcoat industrial estate, Gallagher Business Park at Warwick Technology Park and at Tournament Fields in Warwick. Warwick District Council’s plans for growth do not require employment land on the scale proposed by Gateway.

Employment land to the south of the district would maximise on the opportunities presented by the M40 links with London and Birmingham and via the M42 potential trade, business and wealth creation east and west. Previously developed land should be preferred as development opportunities but if limited expansion is essential then the land south of Leamington would be far less damaging to the district than the loss of its vital green belt. Warwick District Council must preserve the green belt, prevent unrestricted urban sprawl, resist the coalescence of communities, recognise the threat to the countryside from encroachment and preserve the setting and special characteristics of conservation area designated villages, their identity and independence.

Warwick District Council must not allow Coventry to dictate to and simply dismiss Warwick District Council and its constituents just because Gateway is a Coventry project. Well reasoned and valid objections have been raised on social, economic and environmental grounds and these have been ignored or summarily dismissed.

So Warwick district councillors should be asking themselves, what are the benefits for the district’s constituents? Warwick district councillors are elected by and are expected to represent the interests and welfare of Warwick district constituents, not those of Coventry. The fact that the planning officers’ report is being written jointly by officers from Coventry and Warwick further demonstrates Warwick District Council is unable to take an independent and objective view of the application.

If the green belt boundaries are re-drawn by the new emerging Local Plan then the next logical step would be the re-drawing of administrative boundaries. Baginton, stripped of its defensive green belt, would be annexed by Coventry as a suburb under the administration of Coventry City Council. This would make Coventry the planning authority governing Baginton and Coventry Airport. They could then do as they like and Warwick District Council would have no control over it whatsoever.

The Gateway project logistics park would swiftly turn in to hangars, workshops and freight terminal and the technology park would fast develop in to a new passenger terminal off Rowley Road, with hotels, shops and car parks.

Increased air freight would be the first priority for Coventry Airport Limited followed by a return to passenger flights at the earliest opportunity.

Warwick District Council is blindly walking in to this nightmare scenario, guided only by the LEP. The only way to prevent it is to say no to Gateway. - David G Wintle MCIAT ACIOB MaPS, Chantry Heath Lane, Stoneleigh.