Views sought on new ‘core strategy’

Warwick District Council will launch a three-month consultation in order to form a revised core strategy or ‘local plan’.

Up to May last year the authority was preparing a draft strategy based on finding space for 10,800 new homes in the area as part of the former Labour Government’s regional spatial strategy.

But the regional strategy was abolished under the new Coalition last summer and authorities were given the power to decide their own level of growth.

As a result the district council decided in September not to proceed with the core strategy as it stood.

At a meeting of Warwickshire County Council’s Warwick Area Committee at Shire Hall in Warwick on Tuesday Gary Stephens, the district council’s planning policy team leader, gave a presentation to members.

He explained the key principles of the new strategy, which included renaming and relaunching the plan, preparing a more holistic and corporate approach to achieve wider objectives and encouraging more community involvement.

The consultation will be used to establish the key issues in Warwick district, how new development can address these issues and to gage how much new development is needed.

It will not cover the locations of new development at this stage.

Cllr Sarah Boad (Lib Dem, Leamington North) expressed concern that the consultation would take place at a time of council elections when councillors could be restricted in their public response

Mr Stephens assured them that the time frame would allow councillors to have their say outside of election times.

He also assured Cllr John Whitehouse (Lib Dem, Kenilworth Abbey) that the results of previous consultations would still be relevant, adding: “This goes back to the fundamental question of how much and that will affect which sites are needed.”