One battle after another: Residents of village near Leamington say they are ‘under siege’ from planning applications
Residents of a village near Leamington say they are “under siege” from planning applications but are continuing to campaign against them.
Having fought against a planning application for a large solar farm covering 86 hectares of the countryside near Radford Semele last year, villagers are now objecting to an application to build up to 125 homes on land off Southam Road.
More than 90 people have objected to Taylor Wimpey’s housing application, which was submitted to Warwick District Council (WDC) in December last year.
A date has also now been set for an appeal against WDC’s decision to refuse planning permission for the solar farm with the two day hearing taking place at the Royal Pump Rooms in Leamington from Wednesday February 4.
Villager and campaigner Kate Pittel said: “If the Planning Inspector approves the industrial solar development, and the Planning Committee gives the housing development the go-ahead, Radford Semele will have no green space or village amenity left.
"While the housing development ‘only’ covers 7.3 hectares, in combination, the proposals mean that nearly 100 hectares will either be turned into housing or industrial solar.
"This is more than 11.5 per cent of the total amount of agricultural land in the parish.
"Every footpath that currently leads from the village to the countryside, and every open view will be affected. Staffordshire Solar’s plan – if their appeal is successful – is to contain the public rights of way within tunnels to screen the panels from view.
"Doing this however, will also hide the landscape from the users of the footpaths.
"Taylor Wimpey’s 125 houses, packed closely together in an intensely urbanised form out of keeping with the village, will be highly visible and intrusive from two cul-de-sacs that back on to those fields– Overtons Close and Lythall Close – and from several valued views as noted in the Radford Semele Neighbourhood Plan.”
She added: "These proposals have to be considered jointly, because if they are both approved there will be no land surrounding Radford and no village amenity.
"The key characteristics of the Dunsmore and Feldon national character landscape – a ‘predominantly quiet, rural landscape’, ‘open fields which extend from the village’, ‘farmed landscape with a varied undulating topography’ – will be lost forever.”
To view the housing application search for W/25/1716 here: https://www.warwickdc.gov.uk/info/20374/planning_applications