Doubts cast on ‘cloud cuckoo land’ job creation claims for Coventry Gateway scheme

Planning applications are expected shortly for the Coventry and Warwickshire Gateway scheme for 4.6 million sq ft of industrial and commercial buildings on 240 acres around the Baginton airfield and Jaguar Land Rover’s Whitley site.

The CPRE has warned the development would tear a hole in green belt south of Coventry, virtually obliterating open land between the city, Baginton and Bubbenhall.

The organisation says the Government has restated the importance of green belt in preventing urban sprawl and says the airport’s owner Sir Peter Rigby would have to show ‘very special circumstances’ exist to override a strong presumption against development.

It has also questioned whether there is demand for so much industrial and commercial development in a double-dip recession.

Spokesman Mark Sullivan said: “Government and local policies go to great efforts to plan cities and the countryside responsibly. Coventry needs more jobs in the city rather than in the neighbouring countryside. Coventry Gateway looks more like cloud cuckoo land than sustainable development.”

Villagers are concerned about the plans, which would also involve changes to the A46, with Jeremy Wright MP attending a meeting at Bubbenhall Village Hall last week. Bubbenhall parish council said it was “extremely concerned” about the Coventry Gateway proposals and is commissioning research into how the job creation figures were produced.

Warwick district councillor John Hammon (Con, Cubbington) acknowledged the need for new jobs but questioned whether those would be ‘new’, and pointed to the relatively few people needed to work in a modern warehouse or distribution centre.

He admitted he was concerned about the Government’s forthcoming Economy Bill, which will detail a major deregulation of the planning system to speed up job creation.

He said Bubbenhall had already been affected by sand and gravel pits on one side and the Siskin Drive development on the other, and noise and light pollution would further harm the village.