New Local Plan moves to the next stage

The new Local Plan will set out planning policies in the district up to 2031. It will make sure development meets strategic priorities for housing, employment, community facilities, transport and other infrastructure needed to support development.

On 15 May 2017, Harborough District Council’s Executive will consider recommendations that a strategic development area to the east of Lutterworth , together with a strategic development area north of Scraptoft  is the preferred option to accommodate the majority of new housing development still required to be identified for the period to 2031.

Earlier this year, the Leicester and Leicestershire Housing and Economic Development Needs Assessment (HEDNA) – which will feed into the new Local Plan – identified a need for 10,640 dwellings to be built in the Harborough district between 2011 to 2031. That equates to 532 homes per year in that period.

At its meeting on 15 May 2015, Harborough District Council’s Executive will also consider proposals for additional housing as a contingency and to promote flexibility in meeting any unmet housing need from elsewhere in Leicestershire.  This will bring the total amount of housing required to 12,800. However, since 2011, over 8,000 or about 60% of the homes required in the Harborough district up to 2031 have been built, granted planning permission, or allocated by neighbourhood  plans.

No decisions will be made by the Executive at the meeting, but councillors will make recommendations to Full Council which is currently due to meet on 17 July 2017.

In addition to the preferred strategic development areas, the Local Plan will identify other housing sites in Market Harborough and other suitable locations for future development, including business and shopping, within the district.  It will also include proposals for green wedges and countryside protection and put forward new policies for against which decisions on planning applications will be made, replacing the old Local Plan approved in 2001 and the Core Strategy adopted by the Council in 2011.

Local communities will also have the opportunity, through the preparation of neighbourhood plans, to identify further sites they would like to see developed, to meet their share of housing need set out in the Local Plan, as well as to bring forward their own policies for the protection and enhancement of their villages.

It is anticipated that a draft version of the new Local Plan will be published in the summer of 2017 followed by an opportunity for public representations.

View the Executive agenda and reports for 15 May 2017 in full on the council’s website.