17/05/2026
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Building more new homes in Stratford District...
Locations for the many, many new homes planned for Stratford District will be known in the next few weeks.
The District will find out where the government’s demand for 28,000 new homes in the District will be located in the South Warwickshire Local Plan (SWLP).
The next stage of the Plan is about to be unveiled by Stratford and Warwick District Councils. This will show how the two councils intend to meet the government’s objective of building more than 2,000 new homes every year for the next 25 years in South Warwickshire as a whole.
Back in November 2024, the Councils named 24 ‘strategic growth’ locations in South Warwickshire that were going to be evaluated by the planners. Alongside these sites, 12 much larger ‘new settlements’ were also named, including Bearley/Wilmcote to the north of Stratford and Long Marston to the south.
Since then, the planners have been looking more closely at all of the prospective sites. Technical aspects such as flooding and drainage, ecology, environment, topography, accessibility, traffic and transport have all been considered as well as the ‘sustainability’, ‘connectivity’ and likely ‘deliverability’ of the sites.
In its quest to build 1.5 million new homes, the government has turned the planning system upside down and has insisted that it will not accept the SWLP unless the Plan contains more than 50,000 new homes in South Warwickshire before 2050.
Stratford and Warwick District Councils find themselves between a rock and a very hard place. They must come up with a Plan that delivers a huge number of new homes. And if they do not comply before the end of this year, the government will simply impose a much less sympathetic Plan on South Warwickshire.
The SWLP is the least-worst option. Some parts of the Green Belt will be lost forever, but the extent of new housing and its location – and the remaining Green Belt – will be clearly defined for the next 25 years.
And there will be plenty of affordable housing that will allow younger people to live where they grew up.
By going for a limited number of larger sites, the Plan will boost the economies of local communities while ensuring that there is enough money available to build facilities supporting the new homes. As well as new houses, there will be new schools, medical facilities, transport links, community centres and the like.
The SWLP may include a lot of new houses, but it will also exclude other major housing developments.
Unscrupulous developers will be stopped from building estates of large houses where they want and where they will make the most money. If it’s not in the Plan, it won’t be allowed.
When the SWLP is unveiled over the next few weeks, it may not be popular, but the possible alternatives would be far, far worse. Better to have a Plan than have no plan at all... 🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠🏠
