Now’s your chance to be heard about homes and jobs in Kenilworth
IT’S your town, have your say and help shape its future – is the message to Kenilworth people.
A Town Action Plan dealing with pressures for housing development is being drawn up.
The initiative by Kenilworth Town Council is to help ensure there is an integrated plan for development in the town, including housing, sporting, cultural, recreational and allotments.
It will also deal with as to where the town should increase in size, but also where it should be preserved.
Cllr Michael Coker (Con, Kenilworth Abbey), chairman of the town council’s planning and local plan working party, said they wanted to hear from as many people as possible about their views about development and freeing up land for it.
Ideas up for discussion include freeing up land in Rouncil Lane for housing and moving Castle Sixth Form Centre to an expanded Kenilworth School in Leyes Lane.
Which could have implications for Kenilworth Town Football Club, which is adjacent to the sixth form centre playing fields.
It also includes relocating Kenilworth Rugby Club to a multi-sports centre at Castle Farm Leisure Centre, but that would mean encroaching on part of the green belt.
The rugger club’s present site could be swallowed up by up to 800 homes in the Thickthorn area, between the Kenilworth Bypass and Birches Lane and Glasshouse Lane.
Cllr Coker said that while the town council did not want Thickthorn developed, it had to take note that Warwick District Council had identified it for housing.
But he said it should have a “clearly defensible boundary” stopping at Rocky Lane, which would enable Kenilworth Wardens Cricket Club to stay on its Glasshouse Lane site.
It would also allow the rugger club to relocate its clubhouse and number one pitch to what is known as The Cowpatch, north of Rocky Lane, but if the club declined, then keep it as public open space as a buffer between The Wardens and new housing.
Cllr Coker said: “The danger is that the cricket and rugger clubs relocate to the green belt and the temptation in say 20 years time is to move on again.”
Ideas and views are also wanted on the provision of a new site for the Talisman Theatre to free up land for housing, a new primary school, health services and more town centre parking in either Abbey End or behind the Co-op, similar to the part-sunken, one-and-a-half storey Waitrose car park, in an effort to encourage incomers to shop, eat and drink in the town centre.
Cllr Coker, who is also a leading member of the district council, added: “We will take on board ideas and once we’ve put them together we will have a proper consultation, similar to the one about the redevelopment of the town centre.
“Then we can say ‘These are the ideas – have your say’. We welcome anyone to get in touch while we are formulating these ideas.”
To see the town council’s response to the Warwick District Council Local Plan go to www.kenilworthtowncouncil.co.uk
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Weather for Kenilworth
Monday 20 May 2013
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Temperature: 10 C to 19 C
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