SC1 3r.

this area should be preserved

The Green Wedge bordered by New Romney Crescent, Hamilton Lane and Scraptoft Lane is an open grazing area for horses. It is of an uncultivated, quaint and almost unkempt nature but provides a complete contrast to the manicured and artificial nature of other nearby green areas and parks. at Scraptoft, Netherhall Road and Thurncourt, The area has a variety of flora and fauna, Athough not open to the public, local people, especially children, do enjoy seeing the horses and observing a traditional rural outlook. This area should be left untouched and remain as it is.

as recently as 2015 the HDC Green Wedge review considered the entire present green wedge extent and scale appropriate and that it should be protected in the consideration of scale of development to be directed towards Scraptoft. ie not built on. Certainly our property will not be protected from merging with the new development and so essentially merging with Hamilton and Netherhall.

this is NOT a corridor but a thriving nature reserve and should be kept as such and the brook maintained in a proper manner large numbers of wildlife have migrated to the nature reserve due to being squeezed out of their previous habitat due to the excessive felling of trees and the 720 houses built in their place the green wedge between Hamilton lane and hall road is also an important part of our village identity and should be kept as such

Proposed Development - Scraptoft North (SDA)

I believe this proposal is unsound.

The number of dwellings needs to be reduced at least by 50%

Access from the site onto the primary roads needs to be improved to a standard that could cope with 700 housed that have already been built in the last 7 years and any additional houses to be built on the SDA.

Keyham Lane West has already been widened in one part but there are still pinch points at Humberstone end and the Hamilton Lane end. It is already a bus route which the buses have to drive over the kerb or on the verge if another bus or lorry comes in the from the other direction. This route passes 3 schools and also has speed restrictions and speed calming in place. Vehicles are also parked alongside the route on one side.

Another route that might get used is New Romney Crescent and Nether Hall Road although this junction is also very busy onto Hungarton Boulevard and it passes a school.

Another route would be Scraptoft Lane, although the lane itself has less problems it wouldn't be a preferred choice due to how busy it gets just after it joins Uppingham Road. People wanting to get to South Leicester will have to use Station Road and would have to go through Scraptoft Village which doesn't cope at the present time with the amount of traffic using it now. Station Road backs up from Uppingham Road traffic lights at peak times upto Pulford Road for upto 20 minutes for your turn to get out. This route will also be used for the School run to Gartree and Beauchamp College. If the road from Keyham Lane West to Beeby Road was built it will make Beeby and Barkby a rat run for anybody wanting to go North East. Anyone wanting to go East will make Keyham a rat run. Barkbythorpe could also become congested due to so many people wanting to get to Thurmaston and surrounding areas. These are all country roads and not suitable for heavy traffic.

To make this plan sound you would have to improve Keyham Lane West so there was a minimum of a single lane in each direction without interruption giving current residents adequate parking to the properties and proper traffic light control for school pupils. Also improvement to all junctions that enter Keyham Lane with proper sight easements traffic light control onto the Thurmaston Lane/ Hungarton Boulevard roundabout. Station Road junction must operate more efficiently; with existing traffic and proposed traffic this junction will need widening so there is a minimum of two lanes in all directions approximately 50meters. The number of houses should be restricted to a maximum of 600 split into 2 sites, one site approximately 200 onto Beeby Road and second site approximately 400 houses access from Hamilton Lane.

Nature Reserve

It was agreed with Leicester City Council and Harborough District Council in 1999 it was sound then, it is even more sound now due to recent developments primarily Scraptoft Hall Development it appears to have become a major feeding ground to a number of birds there appears to have a balance of nature. Species seen dear, rabbits, foxes, kites, bats, owls, green woodpeckers, kingfisher, hedge sparrows, thrushes, yellow wag tails, robins, wrens, great-tits, chiff-chaffs, starlings, song thrushes, numerous butterflies. It would be beneficial to wildlife if the nature reserve was extended with a corridor through the existing golf course of around 100 metres wide to the open land north of the developments.
Refer to report by Sue Timms and Karen Headly for Leicestershire and Rutland Environmental Record Centre Leicestershire County Council report dated 18 May 2017.

It is also very important to keep the Green Wedge between Scraptoft and Leicester to maintain our village status identity and not to be swallowed up as suburb of Leicester.
Scraptoft has been intensively built in a short space to time it should be more evenly distributed thorough out the districts.

I totally object to the development of the 1200 new homes as it will cause major disruption to the area. I have concerns with traffic, noise, pollution, and the major disruption to the natural wildlife and greenery of the area. It will also have a massive impact to the schools, doctors surgeries, hospitals, and nurseries in the area which area currently struggling without the added pressure. The roads cannot handle the traffic now and I fail to see how an additional 1200 homes will manage.

I totally object to the development of the 1200 new homes as it will cause major disruption to the area. I have concerns with traffic, noise, pollution, and the major disruption to the natural wildlife and greenery of the area. It will also have a massive impact to the schools, doctors surgeries, hospitals, and nurseries in the area which area currently struggling without the added pressure. The roads cannot handle the traffic now and I fail to see how an additional 1200 homes will manage.

Environment r. retention of the area bounded by New Romney Crescent, Hamilton Lane and Scraptoft Lane as Green Wedge to prevent the merging of Leicester and Scraptoft, and to provide recreational resource for new and existing residents of the locality.

Our concern here is that this policy to apply the Green Wedge to this area would restrict its potential use, which may in turn not lead to the best master planned proposals for the whole SDA. In particular, we consider that the area defined as Green Wedge and within the SDA (shaded pink) should be considered as a potential location for the proposed new primary school, as the land is otherwise unconstrained, would be well-located to serve the proposed and existing population and offers an opportunity, which we are keen to explore, of providing a larger community facility that can include community facilities such as meeting places, sports hall and sports pitches for use of the wider community. The Green Wedge policy would preclude the development of the built element of the school.

The Green Wedge has buildings within it currently, including the golf club house and its ancillary buildings, and has the farm buildings within this part of the Green Wedge, so is not without built development of a similar scale already. A two-form entry school would be around 2 hectares and the built floor space (assuming some community use too) might be around 4,450 sq. m, so less than 6% of the proposed retained Green Wedge area. The pitches and outdoor space would be compatible with the Green Wedge (and are allowed for by the Green Wedge Policy GD7), and to be attractive and useful would need ancillary car parking and changing facility/clubhouse, so the additional floor space to accommodate the school (over and above the farm buildings and buildings required for the pitches) would be a small increase, and we do not consider this at all compromises the objective of maintaining the separation of Scraptoft from Leicester.

We would also contend that locating the school within the Green Wedge accords with Policy GD7 Green Wedges in that school playing fields are specifically referenced in paragraph 2 and that development is relatively small scale and the use of the Green Wedge meets other objectives such as the provision of community facilities and additional access to open space areas, which are not accessed currently or wouldn't be unless these new facilities are provided, so there are clear public benefits of locating the school within the area. It is also important to recognise the issues of timing and programming of the school provision and the availability of land within the SDA. The Policy at 3.e. requires the school to be provided 'soon after the completion of 300 dwellings'. The provision of the new replacement golf course is likely to require a build programme of 3 years from start to completion, until the course is fully playable. This means that the current golf course area would not be accessed for around 3 years and development of the SDA would start elsewhere outside of the golf course area, which is land generally in the south of the SDA area. Our outline trajectory assumes (conservatively) that by 3 years some 220 new dwellings will be completed, but by this time it is likely that the school construction will need to have started to enable the school to be available in time. This would mean it must be developed on land in the south of the SDA. We feel there are also advantages to the school relating well to the existing village and catchment of Scraptoft. It is likely the school will draw from existing residents too and a more central location and one well-related to the village (which does not have a primary school) better serves the existing population.

Our aim therefore, is to retain the potential to locate the school within the(existing /retained) Green Wedge area and to allow the proposed master plan to assess and evaluate options, which can include for issues such as the availability of alternative sites, timings, scale and nature of the school (including community uses) and such like, but not to rule out this option at this stage.

If it is considered incompatible with the Green Wedge policy as it stands, then we recommend the area east of New Romney Crescent within the SDA is omitted from the Green Wedge but that provision is made within the Policy itself, with paragraph r. revised as follows:

* Suggested Revised r. retention of the area bounded by New Romney Crescent, Hamilton Lane and Scraptoft Lane as predominantly open space uses to prevent the merging of Leicester and Scraptoft, and to provide recreational and other community facilities (including the primary school), for new and existing residents of the locality (changes in bold).