Click the headline or link below to read the rest of this story.
The group said the plan for Stripes Hill Farm, by Knowle Locks off the Warwick Road, was unsuitable for the green belt and posed traffic dangers.
Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council threw out the plan in December but the developer appealed. The national Planning Inspectorate will make a final decision.
The society said Somerville Homes Ltd had not shown there were ‘very special circumstances’ to justify using the Green Belt for its 223 berth marina plan.
Society planning committee chairman Leighton Jones told the inspectorate in a letter:
“It would constitute a development that would cause harm to the Green Belt in an area where its impact would be very obvious.”
He said: “The size of the development would be very significant and would be very apparent in the landscape adjoining the Knowle Locks, which are locally listed.”
It would ‘form a very noticeable and intrusive development, replacing an area of existing undeveloped landscape’.
Plans to hold exhibitions and have offices at the site would increase visitors, he said.
He said: “This area of the Green Belt is especially under threat from the existing commercial developments on its fringes.
“In particular there is a real risk of development on the site spreading towards the existing garden centre on the Warwick Road through creeping extensions and increased intensiveness of the use of the site.
“In effect this would move the boundary of the Green Belt a significant distance from its established and approved position, by default.”
Lighting would impact ‘on the dark nature of this area’ and access from the Warwick Road, at the bottom of a hill, is ‘unsatisfactory and unsafe’.
Most cars broke the 40mph limit, he said, with the developer’s survey showing 63 per cent were over, he wrote.
Mr Jones said: “The entrance, even with the proposed widening, will not allow a vehicle coming down the hill to move entirely off the road without slowing very significantly.”
He said: “In our opinion these objections are fundamental and, if upheld, must necessitate refusal of this appeal.”
The council threw out the plan as it considered it was ‘inappropriate development as it constitutes an engineering operation that does not maintain the openness of the Green Belt’.
It would have a ‘significant impact on the openness of the Green Belt’ and was ‘harmful’.
It is not known whether a public hearing will be held to hear the evidence for and against the plan.
Another marina plan, for land off Jacobean Lane, is also going to the inspectorate for a final decision after being refused by the council.
What do you think? Leave your comments below. No registration required.
Click here to get stories by email.
