FURIOUS protestors say plans for 550 new homes near a city secondary school should be thrown out on road safety grounds after five tragic fatal collisions in the last 20 years – including two in the last 12 months.
Outline planning application has been submitted for a residential development and the creation of a new road infrastructure providing access to Tamworth Road and Fivefield Road, Keresley, Coventry. The site is close to Cardinal Newman Catholic School on former green belt land near ancient woodland known as Pikehorne Wood and The Alders.
The most recent accidents sadly involved the deaths of an 11-year-old girl last October and 38-year-old cyclist, Chris Carey, last January on Tamworth Road – described by local eco-campaigners as “the most dangerous road in North West Coventry”.
Coventry city councillors are recommended to approve plans in principle at a planning committee tomorrow (Thursday March 4). This would include a 25m buffer zone to protect ancient woodland and individual ancient or veteran trees and provision of a new Keresley SUE Link Road.
Merle Gerling, chair of Keep Our Green Belt Green, says the application should be refused as it will add “significant traffic to already hazardous roads” and lead to “astonishing levels of congestion”.
He said: “The Tamworth Road is the most dangerous road in North West Coventry.
“There have been more fatal road accidents/mile than in the Holyhead Road, Allesley Old Road, Radford Road, Lockhurst Lane, Foleshill Road, or Longford Road.
“In 20 years, there have been five fatal road crashes, including an eleven-year-old girl killed near Waste Lane last year.
“In front of Cardinal Newman School, there have been seven serious injury accidents in the same time – one child was hospitalised. The School Travel Plan worries drivers go too fast nearby. An application to convert Keresley Manor to a hotel in 2000 was refused for this very reason.
“The council may claim that the Keresley link road will take the traffic off of these streets, but there is no assurance that the link road will ever be completed. Highways England has expressed doubts. They wrote: ‘we are not committing to a position that relies upon on a final stage of a Link Road scheme that may not come forward’.”
Further objections have been received from the Woodlands Trust regarding disturbance to the ancient woodlands, North Warwickshire Borough Council on the traffic impact on rural roads, Keresley Parish Council, Warwickshire Wildlife Trust and the tree officer.
The council has received a total of 144 letters of objection including concerns over the loss of countryside and parts of the Forest of Arden, harm to wildlife and road safety, highlighting the recent fatality of a cyclist on Tamworth Road.
The proposed development is part of the Keresley Sustainable Urban Extension (SUE), which also includes an outline application for a further 800 dwellings, a convenience store, retail units, a primary school, a public open space with a play area, allotments and a nature conservation area.
In October 2019 more than 150 residents took part in a Save Our Green Belt protest walk against the plans to build 13,000 homes on parts of Shakespeare’s Forest of Arden, joined by pupils from Cardinal Newman school.
The outcome of an independent review by the UK Statistics Authority into Coventry’s ONS population figures, on which the Coventry Local Plan is based, is expected this month.
Mr Gerling concluded: “There is no need for these homes. Plenty of brownfield remains on the latest register, enough for 4700 homes. We know that the UK Statistics Authority will deliver a report on the reliability of the Coventry numbers this month. It would be premature to make a decision now, on the back of suspect population figures, when we will have authoritative information in a few short weeks. Already, UKSA in 2017 pronounced that student migration figures, which are so significant for Coventry, ‘will not bear the weight placed upon them’.
“We remind councillors that land wrongly removed from the green belt was recently returned to Green Belt by the High Court in the Airborough Neighbourhood Case1, on a change in the Leeds population numbers.”
