The human version (we wrote this, not the council)
This section describes South Warwickshire today. The area covers 488 square miles of mainly open countryside across the two districts, including towns such as Alcester, Kenilworth, Stratford-upon-Avon and Warwick. It has good motorway and rail links between London and Birmingham, and 8% of it lies within the Cotswolds National Landscape. Nearly a third sits in the West Midlands Green Belt, which is designed to prevent urban sprawl. The area's strongest ties are with Coventry, as part of the Coventry and Warwickshire sub-region.
An unofficial plain English summary. The official wording below is
what counts at examination; check it before you rely on anything here.
What the plan says
The text below is extracted automatically from the official PDF and may
contain artefacts; the PDF is authoritative.
rk (NPPF).
1.2 South Warwickshire Today
1.2.1 South Warwickshire covers 488 square miles of predominately open countryside
and comprises the Stratford-on-Avon and Warwick District Council Areas including the
towns of Alcester, Henley-in-Arden, Kenilworth, Royal Leamington Spa, Shipston-on-
Stour, Stratford-upon-Avon, Southam, Warwick and Whitnash.
1.2.2 With good motorway and rail connections between London and Birmingham,
South Warwickshire is a gateway to the West Midlands. South Warwickshire has a
varying landscape and includes parts of 5 national landscape character areas, of which
the Cotswolds National Landscape is one, with 8% of the total area of South
Warwickshire falling into this specific national landscape designation. Nearly a third of
South Warwickshire is part of the West Midlands Green Belt, which is designed to
prevent the unrestricted sprawl of urban areas.
1.2.3 Located to the south of the West Midlands conurbation, South Warwickshire
acts as a transition between the Midlands and the southeast regional economies,
including the Oxford-Cambridge growth arc, comprising a gateway to Birmingham,
Coventry and the Black Country. As such, South Warwickshire is not tied to one
particular centre, but has links with housing market areas that overlap not just with
Birmingham, Solihull and Coventry but with Worcestershire, Cheltenham, Rugby and
Banbury, albeit of varying strengths. Indeed, the functional relationships with
Birmingham and the Black Country are far weaker than those with Coventry and South
Warwickshire is part of a much stronger Coventry Warwickshire sub-region. Figure 1
below sets out the subregional context of South Warwickshire.
1.2.4 Figure 2 (overpage) provides a snapshot of South Warwickshire and forms the
baseline for the issues that the SWLP seeks to address, including housing affordability
and diversifying the economy.
Figure 1: Map showing South Warwickshire
Figure 2: