Proposed developments
Land to the South of Westwood Heath Road
There is a proposed development in the land to the South of Westwood Heath Road, initially for 425 houses with further plans for substantially more in the future.
Link to Warwick District Council Planning Documents
WDC approved the initial tranche of houses (by a narrow majority) in their meeting of 19th June 2018.
Link to Coventry City Council Planning Documents
CCC approved the proposal on 12th July 2018.
Link to Burton Green analysis of the plans.
There are actually two proposed areas H42 (425 houses) and S1 (700+ houses); the code letters identify sections in the WDC Local Plan. Both H42 and S1 occupy former Green Belt land
The "S" in S1 stands for Safeguarded - which essentially means reserved for future use.
There is also an area of "Safeguarded Green Belt" at the lower end of Westwood Heath Road. This lies within the Coventry boundary and although it sounds good, Safeguarded just means it can't be used until someone comes up with a compelling reason to release it.
The proposed access points, which include road widening (necessitating the removal of existing mature hedgerow) are illustrated on the drawing below.
The scheme requires an improvement of the Cromwell Lane / Westwood Heath junction. Although originally designed as a broadening of the T-junction, a mini roundabout is now being considered.
Construction began in late 2020 with the first houses available in 2Q2022.
Details of the final mix are on the Crest Nicholson sales site.
There have been issues with the building site depositing large amounts of the mud on local roads; CN have responded by upping their cleaning programme.
As of February 2022 there are ongoing issues with the disruption caused by the construction.
One of the outstanding concerns with the development is the lack of provision for schooling. The planning application had a S106 agreement to pay Warwick District Council (not Coventry) for school places - the locations were either at Kings Hill (which is several years off completion, if at all) and Kenilworth (which is also having to cope with an expansion of housing)
Proposed A46 Link Road
There is a link road proposed from the A46 in three phases:
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Phase One is a much welcomed improvement to the A46 junction near Stoneleigh, to incorporate a roundabout over the A46 and realigned routing. The intention is to build a new road overbridge first and then connect up the existing bridge into a roundabout over the dual carriageway. This will entail reducing the A46 to two lanes whilst the bridge is built.
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Phase Two is where it gets vague - there is a schematic route shown in the link road plans which goes somewhere near Westwood Heath but the route has not been decided yet. The Link Road to nowhere. Our concern is that if the Link Road does connect somewhere in Westwood Heath, it will just dump further traffic with no benefit (except perhaps to the University of Warwick)
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Phase Three is another notional route to extend out to the A45 to the Northwest of the city, which would effectively provide another through route to the A46 / M40. However this is a long way off and no routes have been published; without Phase Three our view is that Phase Two is practically worthless.
In December 2020, a consultation on the Link Road was announced. "Phase 3" has been dropped for now so the link road doesn't link to the North as originally suggested.
We have created a page specifically for the consultation.
Land to the West of Cromwell Lane
Outline plans for a development on 240 houses near to Tile Hill station
Outline permission has been granted and reserved matters permission ref RMM/2019/3059 was granted on 21/12/2021
HS2
HS2 passes to the southwest of Westwood Heath - Click here for an interactive map of the route
Inevitably there will be disruption during construction and it is although initially unclear how construction traffic will access the site, Westwood Heath Road was used extensively for the construction of the "haul road". Once the main construction phase begins in (approx) February 2021, the main construction traffic should use the haul road and we've been assured there will be little need to use Westwood Heath Road. There will also be an HS2 crossing of the A46, likely to overlap with the construction of the first phase of the A46 link road, which will reduce the A46 by one lane in each direction.
We are taking the opportunity to document the construction of HS2 (and the unfortunate destruction of Green Belt and ancient woodland). Our pictures are here
and the latest pictures from February 2022 are on Flickr.
There is a web page for HS2 local information (for Warwickshire).
This video is based on aerial photography from 2013 with the HS2 route overlaid in CGI.
Coming from the north, the landmarks recognisable are: Burton Green (6:29), Kenilworth Road (7:23) and the A46 (7:30)
University of Warwick
A campus development plan which includes a number of new buildings and over 1,000 car parking spaces over and above the 2009 plan. The Hybrid Application including a 19% increase in the previous 5422 space cap was approved at the Coventry Council Planning meeting on 15th November 2018
We await the next University Masterplan which is expected to include significant expansion, and possible provision of a stadium for Coventry City FC. The University endorse the A46 Strategic Link Road and "The University supports the option to close the section of Gibbet Hill Road to general through-traffic as outlined as a sub-option." (in the A46SLR consultation)
South Warwickshire Local Plan
In 2021 a proposal came forward for a combined Local Plan covering the combined areas of Stratford-on-Avon District Council and Warwick District Council.
Prior to the creation of the Local Plan the authority has issued a "call for sites", giving the opportunity for prospective sites to be put forward for development by landowners and developers.
The output from the Call for Sites can be viewed here.
Red Lane
Proposal for 90 houses - granted by WDC on 4th May 2018
Off Cromwell Lane
Not allocated or safeguarded in the Local Plans, but an outline to build 150 more houses.
Kings Hill
Outline proposal for 2500 new homes in the Kings Hill area.
Status: Granted 24/12/2021
Eastern Green
One of three "Sustainable Urban Extensions". This is along the A45 to the Northwest of Coventry, on former Green Belt land.
OUT/2018/3225 - Outline permission for 2400 homes.
Granted 3/6/2021
FUL/2019/2671 - Grade separated junction - granted 30/06/2020
Construction started early 2022.
FUL/2020/1059 Piper Homes - Pickford Green Lane North. (115 homes)
Approved 1/7/2021
FUL/2020/1992 Lagan Homes - Pickford Green Lane South. (60 homes)
Granted 15/12/2021
OUT/2020/2009 Framptons - Windmill Green (566 homes)
Lodge Farm off Westwood Heath Road - Two houses
An application for two houses on former Green Belt land on the fringes of the H42 allocation adjacent to the "425 house" development. Link to application here. Status: Granted 27/03/2019
