Published Date: 30 October 2009  Michael Synnott of the Kenilworth Society writes for the Weekly News – this week he focuses on plans for new housing in the area.

All summer long, in the supermarkets, pubs and across garden fences, Kenilworthies have debated the core strategy - planners proposals of where to put 10,800 homes required under regional plans.

For the Kenilworth Society, the debate has triggered a wider discussion of what kind of town we want to create by 2026.

The core strategy is Warwick District council's response to the Government's call to raise the annual number of new homes.

To conform to the government's directives, Warwick District must find land for an additional 8,000 homes by 2026.

Kenilworth's contribution to this target is likely to be an additional 800 homes with the sacrifice of some of the surrounding green belt to provide the land.

The Kenilworth Society's focus is on the overall cultural, economic and community development of the town..

For this reason, our response to the core strategy has stressed the need to take a wider view than merely more housing.

Instead, the development must be driven in tandem with local economic development.

Such a policy should be based on our proximity to our famous next door neighbour, the University of Warwick, an internationally renowned knowledge centre and powerful regional economic hub.

It is inexplicable why we have not previously taken steps to bring our local economy close to the potential opportunities represented by the university.

For many residents, the response to the core strategy so far has been a resounding "over our dead bodies".

This is perfectly understandable.

While local landholders and developers are already salivating at the prospect of a big payday, the rest of us may have to endure increased traffic, overflowing schools and overwhelmed local services that more new housing may bring.

Others have queried the accuracy of the numbers involved. "Who can accurately predict the future?", asked one person at a recent public meeting who went on to argue that valuable greenbelt land could be lost needlessly just because some Government statistician had a bad day at the office. Nonetheless, this argument misses the key point.

The current campaign to retain the Kenilworth fire station and the passionate debate about the future of the town centre, which has filled the pages of the newspaper in recent years, powerfully demonstrate the deeply held feelings we Kenilworthies have for our town. Therefore, we must formulate a joint vision for how we want our town to develop and show our determination to have it realised.

Government officials and developers are very comfortable with public debates based on statistics alone. After all, they are well placed to manipulate the information to suit their ends and if all else fails communities opposing development plans can be written off as NIMBYs (not in our back yard). A community with a clear vision for its own future is much harder to ignore