Regulation 19 - Proposed Draft Local Plan Submission

The plan needs to be amended to acknowledge the impact on the highways leading to Wistow, Kilby and the A5199 (Welford Road). This route is already a commuter 'rat run' which will be made worse by development on this site. There is also the potential for unauthorised heavy construction traffic contravening the (un-enforced) weight limit on this route, causing distress and danger to village residents as well as highway damage.

Site K1 is considered to be unsuitable for residential development, since it is a very large intrusion into the countryside and is currently productive agricultural land. Although Kilby lies outside Harborough District, it has been adversely affected by increased commuter traffic resulting from other large residential developments on this side of Kibworth.

The only feasible vehicular access to this site is from Leicester Road Fleckney and this needs to be stated in the plan. The impact of development on already overloaded local infrastructure need to be acknowledged.

Development of site F1 is likely to aggravate an already intolerable situation for residents of Kilby caused by our village being a 'rat run' for commuters from Fleckney using the route to the A5199, Fosse Park / Meridian, M1 and beyond. Also , the means of vehicular access, both during construction and post-completion is unclear. Kilby experienced severe problems with heavy construction traffic accessing the adjacent DWH site using the weight-restricted route via Kilby Road Fleckney and Fleckney Road Kilby to access the site. Use of this route to access this site would not be acceptable to Kilby residents.

Whilst we support the objectives of Policy AP03, there is no concise definition of 'countryside' in the Glossary or elsewhere in the plan. The Policies Map also fails to identify 'countryside'. This means that the policy is weak as far as developments in the countryside close to existing settlements are concerned. This is in contrast to adopted Local Plans for Oadby & Wigston and Blaby council areas where policies maps specifically identify 'countryside', avoiding ambiguity.