Harborough District MPs Alicia Kearns and Neil O’Brien are to host a public meeting in opposition to government plans to build a new town between Great Glen, Oadby, Houghton and Thurnby.
The meeting is to be held at 6:30 pm on Friday 8th November at St Luke’s Church Hall, Thurnby, LE7 9PN
The government has announced plans to build thousands of new homes on the site as part of the “New Homes Accelerator”. They want planning permission from Harborough District as part of the council’s new Local Plan, which is to be voted on in January.
A document drawn up by Harborough District Council lists the sites which are applying for planning permission. In the area around Great Glen, Houghton, Stoughton and Thurnby the Council lists sites which it says have the potential for up to 16,500 homes.
Not all of these sites will necessarily be granted permission, and some will likely be given permission for fewer homes than their promoters hope, but the magnitude of development in the area is still likely to be very large.
A final decision on whether the plans are to be allowed will be taken by Harborough District Council as part of its decision on the next Local Plan on 16 January next year. However, it has emerged that councillors will only be shown the full proposals a week before Christmas.
Local MPs have previously flagged up concerns about the rushed nature of the decision-making process and the fact that only one in every thousand local residents has taken part in the council’s consultation so far, with many local people completely unaware.
People who would like to attend the meeting should RSVP here.
Alicia Kearns, Member of Parliament for Rutland and Stamford, said:
“What the Labour government are proposing to build here would be a very large new settlement. We are one of just three places they have singled out in the whole country to take such a large new development. But there are massive practical problems with this plan. The roads in and out of Leicester in this area are already totally choked at rush hour. If you add a massive new settlement, it will be chaos. At least the previous Labour government were talking about building a tram to serve the new town. This time they don’t even have that. The process so far has excluded the public with just one in a thousand residents taking part in the flawed consultation. Now the council are planning to ram through a decision which will change our area forever, with as little discussion as possible. It is a disgrace, and people are angry. We need to stop the council from bouncing this through, so I hope as many people come along as possible”.
Neil O’Brien, Member of Parliament of Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, said:
“Before the election we called on the government to reveal where its planned new towns would go, and warned they would revive the old Eco-Town plans in our area. Now they have do just that, and the government are talking about building thousands of new homes here. The government haven’t anybody here and haven’t even bothered to visit before announcing this. Our local council claim ‘no-decision has been made’ but it is clear they are planning to agree to this massive new settlement as part of their new Local Plan, and that they plan to bounce it through in a couple of months’ time with as little discussion as possible. I hope as many people as possible will come to the public meeting so we can fight back against this new town before it is too late.”
