Shipston campaign calls for residents to attend Leisure Centre exhibition on consultation plans for 1600 new houses - including on current flood areas

Shipston area residents have expressed their concern over earmarking land for a further 1,600 houses to be built.

A new Facebook campaign group, Say No to additional 1600+ Houses, has been launched and is urging people to attend the Public Consultation Exhibition taking place at Shipston Leisure Centre in Shipston tomorrow (Tuesday) between 1 – 7pm.

The large parcel of land towards Barceston in the east and two smaller plots to the north and south of the town have been identified as preferred options for ‘strategic growth’ under the South Warwickshire Local Plan.

Many have pointed out that the proposed area includes areas currently and regularly flooded.

Others point to the huge numbers of houses recently built, and the drain upon the sewage system, which has well-documented problems over the last few years.

Currently the plan is being consulted on and residents have until 7th March to submit their opinion.

The Local Plan process has already been through two public consultations, but this one will include 36 emerging housing and employment growth location options. Twelve of these are potential new settlement sites – places where new towns could be built– and 24 are “strategic growth location options”, the areas where lots of homes or business areas could be added to an existing town or village - of which Shipston is one.

The district councils of Stratford and Warwick devised the plan jointly to meet the needs of the area from 2027 to 2050.

South Warwickshire – like everywhere else in the country – is obliged by government mandate to provide a local plan to meet certain housing targets over the next 25-year period.

Currently the Stratford district as a whole is expecting to provide 27,000 new homes during the next quarter of a century and the Warwick district 27,000-plus, making a total of 54,450 in the southern part of the county.

See the consultation at www.southwarwickshire.org.uk/swlp.