To note any requests to speak on any items that are on the agenda in accordance with the Council’s Public Speaking Scheme (see footnote to this agenda).
Minutes:
Councillor Izzi Seccombe (Leader of Council and Chair of Cabinet) welcomed two public speakers to the meeting. These were Mr Ian Stevenson, Chair of Westwood Heath Residents Association, and Councillor Alan Marshall, Vice-Chairman of Burton Green & University of Warwick Parish Council.
Councillor Seccombe also noted that Mr Edward Clinton, a student at Warwick University, had hoped to attend the meeting to speak but was unable to do so and he had made a written submission setting out the point of view of the students who were not supportive of the proposals since they did not consider the link road to be beneficial to them. .
1. Mr Ian Stevenson
Mr Stevenson made the following statement:
“We submitted a detailed 13-page response to the consultation which contains the detail behind the points I am about to summarise. In summary we oppose the A46 Link Road in its current form for a number of reasons.
Firstly, it is the unnecessary destruction of the Green Belt. The link road is around 5km long and would remove about 25 Hectares of land from the Green Belt between Coventry and Kenilworth, and effectively close the gap between the two towns. As a comparison, that’s more than half the size of the proposed University of Warwick Eco Park
Secondly, the Link Road is not a link road. The original link road concept was to join the A46 at Stoneleigh to the A45 at Eastern Green (northwest of Coventry). These proposals only get half-way, terminating in a residential area within Westwood Heath. The remaining 6 or 7km of road that would take this to the A45 actually pass through existing residential areas and the proposal relies on those existing residential areas taking up the extra traffic that the link road will create. In short, it does not do what it says on the can.
The third point is the transport modelling does not take account of post-Covid ways of working. So it has all been designed for pre-Covid and we know there are substantial changes to behaviours including hybrid working, working from home and so on. Although the consultation report says this will be taken into account during the next phase, that’s rather putting the cart before the horse if indeed the post-Covid ways of working change the way that the link road might be justified.
The fourth point is that we have uncovered lots of unsound data in the business case, there are gaps in the traffic assessment, pieces of development missing like Balsall Common which has recently put extra developments in their local plan, HS2 car park north of Coventry with 7500 places, Westwood Business Park is said to be growing but in fact it is shrinking as an employment area and I don’t think these will not stand up to detailed scrutiny if and when this goes through the Department for Transport. In our report, we cited a number of areas in the way the consultation process was flawed with factually incorrect statements, and misleading and biased information as detailed in our report.
Finally, the active and sustainable transport options were not really considered as options, they were just tagged on the back of the link road itself and there was no “sustainable transport only” solution that was identified as part of the consultation. The consultation report says that will be done as part of the next phase but I question how you can proceed to an outline business case when that option has not yet been explored.
In summary, you’re spending £100m on a proposal that is little more than a bypass for the University of Warwick.”
2. Councillor Alan Marshall, Vice-Chairman, Burton Green & University of Warwick Parish Council
Councillor Marshall read out the following statement.
“In only 3 minutes I can but briefly state our concerns, but they were set out fully in a 7-page response sent to the County Council in February. Our concerns focus on Stage 3 and furthermore on what might follow in terms of providing the ultimate link with the A45 or A452 at Ballsall Common.
In short, our opposition is because first of all the strategy of the link road is particularly questionable as it is based on diverting traffic from strategic routes onto the local road network in Burton Green, Tile Hill and Eastern Green.
Although Option 3 removes through traffic from Stoneleigh Road and Gibbet Hill Road, it is at the expense of encouraging much more traffic to affect residents in Westwood Heath and Burton Green and the situation in Burton Green would also be worsened by traffic generated from the sizeable forthcoming housing developments over the border in Balsall Common and Berkswell.
Moreover, the Balsall Common Relief Road, allowed for in the Solihull Local Plan, will intersect Hob Lane and result in that narrow, winding road which goes past Burton Green School becoming an additional ?rat run? route to reach Cromwell Lane and Westwood Heath Road to join the Link Road to Stoneleigh.
There will be also serious worsening of environmental conditions and even more erosion of what remains of the Green Belt between Coventry and Burton Green – a huge amount has already been lost through the Local Plan and now by the construction that is underway of HS2.
There are still too many uncertainties remaining. What will be the implications of a railway station and interchange; indeed, will it materialize at all? Will a football stadium be built? Will employment numbers and working practices change significantly at the University post Covid?
It is also likely that traffic forecasts have been modelled on baseless population forecasts. Surely, given the recent Office of Statistics Regulation examination of Office for National Statistics projections for Coventry, it would be best to await the 2021 Census findings to be disclosed next year.
In any event, before any proposal for a Phase 2 link is determined, a decision in principle must be taken now about whether a Phase 3 link should be built and, if so, a clear strategy of where it would go should be decided and be incorporated in a strategic plan, whereas at present we seem to have only incremental plans that stop, unstrategically, at the Warwickshire border.
Without a defined, safeguarded route for a third phase, the uncertainty blights a core part of Burton Green.”
Councillor Izzi Seccombe thanked both members of the public for their contributions and advised that Cabinet would bring forward the A46 Strategic Link Road Consultation report to be considered as the next item.