Kings Hill Protest - Sunday 16th July 2017
On Sunday afternoon, many groups of protestors from in and around Coventry met on Green Lane, Finham to show their anger at what they consider unjustifiable and unnecessary building on Green Belt land. These groups came from Allesley, Allesley Green, Burton Green, Eastern Green, Exhall, Finham and Westwood Heath.
Three hundred held hands outside the Finham Primary School all the way along Green Lane down to Kings Hill Lane as a symbolic line preventing any bulldozers from desecrating Kings Hill and to highlight the unproven need to remove Green Belt land which was introduced in the 1950s to prevent ‘Urban Sprawl’. Kenilworth will effectively be annexed to Coventry should approval be given by the Inspector of the Warwick District Council’s Local Plan whose decision is expected in late September, as there will be no Green Belt left.
Kings Hill is faced with the threat of a new town of 4,500 houses, due to Warwick District Council being requested by Coventry City Council to take some of their ‘housing overspill’ based on what is now shown to be false premises. Coventry City Council is basing the numbers on a single consultant’s report that predicts a 32% growth in population by 2030. However, the same report only predicts a 10/12% growth in all other surrounding towns and cities including Birmingham.
This new town would be over twice the size of Finham today, without the prospect of any infrastructure improvements to handle the additional 8,100 cars that will come with it (Coventry City Council calculation).
Developers plan to build these houses on half of the land comprising Kings Hill which is approximately the same acreage as Finham due to the need to avoid ancient woodlands, 27 ponds, Saxon remains, ancient hedgerows and Grade II listed buildings. This would result in a housing density for Kings Hill of approximately four times that of Finham.
There to support the groups were Jim Cunningham Coventry South MP, Coventry City Councillor Gary Crookes and Paul Davies Chairman of the Finham Parish Council who addressed the protest rally, expressing their concerns about this new development and held interviews with BBC Midlands Today and ITN Central News which were broadcast that evening.
Regards