I am a Resident of Lymm and live at 13 Racefield Close, WA13 0JF. I understand that it is very important that the Council has a local plan in place and am pleased to note that some improvements have been made to the projected increase in housing development since the 2019 version.

However, I wish to register my strongest objection to the current draft local plan that the Council is proposing to implement on the following basis:-
The Council appears to be ignoring their own Green Belt boundary agreement which I understand was confirmed 7 years ago with a projected life-span of 20 years and which I understand will now reduce the Green Belt allocation to 5% and will result in the loss of 1400 acres of Green Belt across Warrington,
The Urban Extension plan proposes a minimum of 4200 houses and a significant development of warehousing facilities across Warrington, which will use large areas of undeveloped land but will not generate many high-quality jobs and also lead to increased carbon emissions.
The detrimental effect it will have on the south of Warrington, in terms of loss of large parts of the Green Belt (almost 1000 acres) through housing development and the negative ecological/environmental impact this will have,
Lymm is already suffering from overdevelopment and the plan to increase housing by a minimum of 300 across two sites and will have a negative impact on the village. These developments will not be targeted for affordable housing but to luxury housing, increasing the traffic problems of the village centre,
The Plan contains no apparently clear detailed plans for timely and effective delivery of infrastructure improvements to accommodate this proposed high level of development/additional traffic congestion in the south Warrington area which already have to struggle with a ?not fit for purpose? transport infrastructure and rely on an overstretched and crowded road system,
The effect of the traffic congestion on the already high levels of air pollution around South Warrington, in particular Stockton Heath, Lower Walton and the Cherry Tree area of Lymm and the reduction of the green belt in these areas will remove the buffer that the open countryside provides which currently absorbs the pollution from nearby motorways.
The Local Plan is predicated on the Council?s forecasts for economic growth which are based on levels of activity and development at rates which appear to be unachievable, especially given the impact Covid 19 has had on the downturn of economic growth across the country in general,
The proposals do not trigger regeneration of businesses in the Town centre and will not encourage more people to spend money there. We have already witnessed the decline of many retail areas, whilst the Council has allowed development of additional new ones, e.g. Junction 19 Retail Park, which take trade/business away from the town centre.
If implemented, the plan will have a negative impact on the characters and identities of local villages and will destroy landscapes/ecological systems which have existed for centuries- to use a salient adage ?once gone-gone forever?!
Warrington has large areas of brownfield sites which lie abandoned and could be earmarked for regeneration rather than developers building on greenfield sites which are more profitable for them,
Following the COP26 summit, the Government has committed to significant measures to support climate change in the UK, which will impact on Councils? Local Development plans for the future. Surely now is not the right time to implement a plan which does not take these factors into account.

As a Resident of Lymm, I am extremely concerned about the Council?s Plan and would urge the members to reconsider their proposals.