THE IMPACT OF THE MARKET HARBOROUGH DEVELOPMENT PLANS ON EVINGTON, STOUGHTON AND THURNBY

Many residents of Evington must have breathed a sigh of relief when Pennbury was not selected as one of the Eco towns to be built. We still do need to be aware, however, that Harborough District Council is required by government legislation to plan and build 7,000 houses over the next 20 years. There has been a consultation period in which residents of the borough have been asked to comment on different options and this period has now ended. The council have to formulate a draft proposal by November of this year taking people's responses into account.

Some of the options outlined in the consultation document will have considerable impact on Evington and the surrounding area. Harborough are required to put at least 15% of the houses required on land adjacent to the urban fringe. Possible sites for these houses have been identified all around the city boundary from Netherhall round to Oadby and Wigston.

Around Evington many green field sites adjacent to the city are included for consideration. If these sites were accepted the city would in effect connect with Thurnby, Stoughton and Oadby. Such identified sites include the land running next to Shady Lane opposite the Arboretum, land at the back of Delaware Rd and Newhaven Rd, and also Coles Nursery land.

The impact on the environment of the extra traffic brought into the area and the loss of the green wedge between city and county would have a detrimental effect on Evington.

Evington residents need to be alert to the publication of the draft proposals in November and study them carefully to see exactly how the proposals will impact on our area.

The Local Development Framework from Harborough District Council can be found on the internet on www.harborough.gov.uk/corestrategy. The sections relevant to this area are Theme 5 - Strategic distribution of Housing, and Theme 6 - Locations for Development. Maps of sites identified for possible development can be found on www.harborough.gov.uk/evidence website. These maps can be found by clicking on “related downloads” and towards the end of these is a section headed “Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment”. In this section Appendix 2 “Site Maps of included Sites for the urban fringe” is needed.

Judging by letters recently published on Page 4 of the Leicester Mercury and Central and East Midlands TV news coverage it seems that most county boroughs adjacent to the City boundary are looking to develop green areas as part of the East Midlands Regional allocation of houses required for the next 20 years. It is to be hoped that the many empty flats in the city centre are occupied and the brown field sites, such as the stretch on Abbey Park Rd are developed before swathes of green field sites are concreted over.

Anne Tester