The ages-old battle between conservation and development had a local focus at the recent Coventry Local Plan Inquiry. At the hearings on 9 June the adequacy of future land for Coventry’s local employment needs was debated. Two sites were at issue, both accessed off the A45. One was the current Henry VIII playing fields and adjacent Jaguar Land Rover lands at Baginton Fields, Whitley; the other north of the A45 near Pinkett’s Booth on Coventry’s western boundary. This note explains the issues at Pinkett’s Booth.
Not enough land for local jobs?
Coventry’s proposed Local Plan 2021-41 identifies some 84 hectares (has) of land for sub-regional strategic employment sites (i.e. major job-creating investments) but can only identify 60 ha of new local employment land as opposed to the ‘minimum’ 105 ha required, an immediate shortfall of 45 ha. The City Council has indicated in its draft Local Plan that it “will continue to work proactively with neighbouring councils to ensure that the appropriate provision is made elsewhere”.
As a result of the shortfall however, the City Council has proposed a further 25 ha. of employment land at Baginton Fields, while developers have proposed the allocation of 20ha of land north of the A45 and west of Brickhill Lane (near Pinkett’s Booth) to seek to ‘meet the gap’ in local employment land provision.
Pinkett’s Booth
The Pinkett’s Booth site is proposed to be allocated in the Local Plan for employment by Hallam Land and the trustees of the Eastern Green Pool Trust. The 20ha site is adjacent to but north of the Pickford Gate mixed use urban extension site currently in development. It would be accessed off the north of the new loop road to the new A45 bridge.
At the Local Plan Inquiry on 9 June the Council for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) and an independent attendee objected to the proposal from Hallam Land et al on a number of grounds.
Firstly, that the site is not allocated in the draft Local Plan.
Secondly, is allocated as Green Belt in the Plan, and as part of the Meriden Gap it has long been part of planning policy in the West Midlands to protect open land in this ‘Gap’ so as to avoid the coalescence of Coventry Solihull, and Birmingham.
Thirdly, that the A45 acts as a defensible boundary against the encroachment of this development to its north.
Fourthly, there have been no ‘exceptional circumstances’ put forward to justify the removal of the site from the Green Belt.
Finally, that as a site has been proposed at a late stage in the Local Plan Inquiry there has been no consultation on the developer’s proposal.
It seems to the Coventry Society that all these objections have significant merit, the first four from a planning viewpoint while the fifth is a matter of social justice.
As a proposal made to the Inquiry but not consulted upon, many interests are affected. Among them will be local residents at and adjacent to the site, the two Parish Councils of Allesley and Meriden, the three Coventry ward councillors for Bablake Ward and the adjacent Solihull Council. The public does not know of this proposal and it needs discussion.
The Outcome?
One of the two inspectors conducting the Inquiry noted the need for the publication of this development proposal and consultation on it, and the City Council would then have to decide as to whether to seek to include it in the Local Plan.
Should this be the case the Local Plan Inquiry would need to be reopened to examine the merits of the proposal. The senior City Council planner at the Inquiry accepted this outcome. Undoubtedly this will delay the Inspectors decision on the Plan, which was expected later this year, and its eventual adoption.
