Regulation 19 - Proposed Draft Local Plan Submission

Create a series of new options. The most obvious opportunity would be to collaborate with North Northants to explore potential land to the south and southwest of Market Harborough.

Foxton Parish Council recognises that there is a need to build a large number of new houses in the period to 2041. HDC has gathered evidence and established a series of high-level options.

HDC has settled upon concentrating new housing near the major settlements. Whilst this seems to be the best idea of the various options generated, we can find no evidence of a scoring matrix. Best practice would be to create a number of options in parallel with creating a scoring matrix. In this way, the issues (such as ease of build, flooding risk, traffic impact, access to schools,…) can be identified and weighted. The options can then be assessed against this matrix. There seems to be no evidence to suggest that the options were fairly assessed in this way. Nonetheless, our empirical view is that it makes sense to build new housing close to the existing major conurbations.

Having settled upon this option however, there seems to be a very large gap in the planning process. The District Council has presented only one option for new housing against the preferred high level option. Best practice would be to create a series of more detailed options for each of the major conurbations and assess these options against a scoring matrix. This work has not happened. Rather, there is a fait accompli: Market Harborough needs x more houses and these houses are going to be build in locations a, b, c and d. The current consultation is against this backdrop: there are no alternatives to discuss or assess. There are endless documents on the HDC website but there has been no genuine attempt at creating options.

The one option on the table concentrates a large number of houses on the north side of Market Harborough on land currently occupied by the show ground and the semicircular plot of land to the east of the Melton Road inside the loop of the canal. Taken together, these plots would hold 1,700 houses and would hence house maybe 4,000 new residents. The land by the canal is a giant cul de sac: there is no way out other than via Leicester Lane (the road that forms a junction with Gallow Field Road) or a potential new exit off the roundabout at the Harborough Innovation Centre. All of these new houses will rely upon the town centre for access to shopping, trains, etc and there is no direct access to the A6 because the canal is in the way.

Melton Road isn’t well suited to another c.4,000 residents joining it at the Gallow Field Road junction or the Innovation Centre roundabout. Whilst the land immediately to the south of Market Harborough isn’t in Leics (it’s in Northants), surely it would be massively more sensible to build on land near to the leisure centre? It’s walkable to the town centre and the Northampton road is much quieter than the Melton road. One could conceive of a new access road south of Lubenham to relieve any pressure on the A4304 through the town.

Putting 1,700 houses (along with a new primary and secondary school) between Foxton and Great Bowden will make access to these villages much more difficult. We can all see how our current junctions with the A6 and the Melton Road fail to cope with traffic today. How bad will it be with all the new housing, schooling and employment? Before sealing the deal on the one option on the table, could HDC please sit down with Northants Council to understand if it would be possible for Harborough to expand southwards as well as northwards?