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Spitfire Homes has applied to build 40 homes on fields off Old Warwick Road, on the western edge of Ettington, about five miles south-east of Stratford. Fourteen would be affordable homes. The site is outside the village boundary drawn in Ettington’s neighbourhood plan, and the developer’s own planning statement accepts the scheme would harm the setting of a listed church tower, but argues the district’s housing shortage outweighs that.
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What’s planned
- 40 homes from one to five bedrooms on 2.39 hectares of grassland, trees and hedgerows: 26 for sale and 14 affordable (35%).
- Access from Old Warwick Road, across the road from the newer Saracen Close homes, with a 20mph limit proposed on that part of Old Warwick Road.
- About 7,800 square metres of public open space in the southern part of the site, keeping the new homes back from Ettington Grange, plus a drainage pond, a sewage pumping station and an electricity substation.
- Air source heat pumps, solar panels and electric car chargers.
The developer’s case, and the harms it accepts
Spitfire’s planning statement, written by Twenty5 Planning, says the new homes deserve “substantial weight” because the district can’t show enough land for housing. The council’s own figure is 2.43 years against the five required, as we reported when the Cabinet discussed it on 2 November. While that shortfall lasts, national policy tilts decisions towards approving homes.
The statement weighs that against the scheme’s downsides. It accepts a conflict with the neighbourhood plan and the district’s Core Strategy because the land is outside the village boundary, the loss of good-quality farmland, and some landscape harm in the Feldon Parkland Special Landscape Area, though it gives each of these limited weight. It gives “significant weight” to the harm to heritage: the Grade II listed tower of the former church of St Thomas a Becket, ridge-and-furrow earthworks in the north of the site, and the former vicarage gardens. The county council notes the site isn’t one of those allocated in the draft South Warwickshire Local Plan.
What villagers and consultees have said
Spitfire showed early plans to Ettington Parish Council and 18 residents at the community centre on 13 May. According to the developer, the biggest local worry was foul drainage and sewage capacity; people also asked about school places, the ridge and furrow and traffic on Old Warwick Road. The parish council said it would wait for the full application before giving a view.
No comments from the public were on file on 6 November. Of the early consultee replies, the county’s minerals team doesn’t ask for stone to be dug out first, but wants conditions on how soil and building materials are handled, and the county’s tree officers have no comments.
How to comment, and what happens next
The application is 26/02433/FUL on the council’s planning site, where you can read the plans and comment. Neighbour and consultee replies are due by 17 November and the overall consultation ends on 26 November. The council aims to decide by 25 January 2027. It’s one of several bigger schemes lodged around Stratford this autumn, after 70 homes at Kineton and 99 at Salford Priors.
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Alex Harrington
Alex Harrington grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon and runs What's up, Stratford? as an independent guide to the town.
