The biggest thing on the agenda of the Coventry Society over the summer has been responding to the City Council’s review of the Coventry Local Plan.

The Coventry Local Plan was adopted in 2017 and looks forward to 2031. The plan is now due for its five-year review which will take it forward to 2041. The current exercise is a review of the 2017 plan and not a new plan.

The policies and proposals of the local plan will set the pattern for the development of Coventry for the next two decades. If you have any doubt about this, then just consider the major developments that followed the approval of the 2017 plan – with thousands of new houses planned and being built in Keresley and Eastern Green.

The City Council has published a document on Issues and Options for the review of the local plan. This is currently open for public consultation until 29th September.

The Coventry Society recognises the importance of the local plan. We campaign for a quality environment, better amenities, recognition of the importance of our heritage, and support for our diversity and distinctiveness. So, the content of the reviewed plan is important to us and the city.

The issues and options paper focuses on modifications and changes to existing policies. The documentation is challenging. As well as the main paper, there are a dozen supplementary topic reports and detailed appendices. It is also necessary to read these documents at the same time as consulting the existing local plan. But thankfully, there is a summary.

All of these documents can be found at Local Plan Review – Coventry City Council. There is also an online form for responses. But be warned! There are 108 questions embedded in a document of 128 pages.

Consultation on the Issue and Options report has included a number of public drop-in sessions organised by the Council in city libraries. In addition, Coventry NW Member of Parliament Taiwo Owetami has organised three additional sessions and the Coventry Society has partnered with the Green New Deal group to organise a community engagement event.

Following the community engagement event and after listening to local residents at some of the drop-in sessions the Coventry Society will submit its views on the Council’s review document.

We set out below some of our current thinking about the future Local Plan, based on the Issue and Options consultation.

We welcome and support several of the proposals including:

 Protection of the green belt and local green spaces, but we would like to see much more emphasis on improving these areas.

 Rejection of the government’s policy of boosting housebuilding by an extra 35% over and above agreed local needs.

 Focus on affordable housing provision especially social rent (which is approximately 50% of market rent) as well as alternative forms of provision e.g. co-living, and self-build & ?amp; custom build housing.

 Transport strategy with its emphasis on public transport improvements (but this depends on the actions of other organisations such as the West Midlands Combined Authority).

There are a number of issues where we believe there should be much stronger emphasis e.g.

 Tackling climate change e.g. improving green and blue infrastructure. We would like to see the Council develop policies for the Rivers Sherbourne and Sowe that encourages appropriate development in the vicinity of the river, but prevents inappropriate development in the river flood plain.

 We would like to see the council make a firm commitment to liveable neighbourhoods in both existing and new housing areas. A liveable neighbourhood would have more green spaces , local facilities and services, and a better built environment, all within walking distance.

 Conserving and improving our heritage e.g. our city centre and the post-war housing estates.

 Design policies that reflect the distinctiveness and uniqueness of our city.

Finally, there are two issues where we believe a new direction is required:

 New student housing: We believe that there should be a moratorium on new schemes until there is an agreement over future requirements. Evidence that we have seen suggests that there is an excess of student housing in the city and city council failure in other housing areas suggests that there should be a re-focus of housing priorities.

 We think that the council should develop policy and an investment strategy that is targeted at the north of the city and on former-council estates. We feel that there is too much emphasis on the more affluent parts of the city.

Following the completion of the consultation, the Council will review the responses to help them draw up a revised draft local plan. This will be subject to formal consultation at some point in 2024. The Council hopes to adopt this as the formal local plan for Coventry in 2025.

The council has extended the consultation period until the end of September and we hope that as many people as possible, who are interested in the future of the city, will take the time and make the effort to respond to the consultation.