Lutterworth East Given Go Ahead Despite Local Concerns

Speaking after the virtual Planning Meeting, Lutterworth Labour Councillor Paul Beadle said:

"I am extremely disappointed by the decision to give the massive development at Lutterworth East the go-ahead, despite local concerns.

"Permission was nodded through despite members acknowledging that County's current plan isn't the best option for relieving traffic in the town centre, and despite serious concerns around noise, air pollution and road safety.

"It was a narrow vote, going through five to four.  It was extremely disappointing that of those voting for the application none represented Lutterworth.  Speakers from Lutterworth were all opposed to the application in its current form but our objections counted for nothing."

Planning gains fiasco at Glenfield!

Everybody's favourite council is back in the headlines for all the usual reasons. Fecklessness, incompetence, pointlessness...

Leicestershire County Council, the well-known low-interest unsecured loans business, has handed back £900,000 in planning gains to hard-pressed developers. Why? Because these 'gains' must be spent within a certain period of time. It's a long period because some big developments are complicated and take time to come to fruition. There's only one other condition - that the donations are necessary to offset the impact of the development, which is sensible and prudent, otherwise they would just look like backhanders.


So the need existed - was established and proven through the planning inquiry system - it was just that Leicestershire County Council, so busy doing nothing in so many other areas, just didn't get to doing anything about it. So now the need will go on being unmet, for the foreseeable future. Nice work, guys!

Local council re-takes control of its housing

Congratulations to Charnwood Borough Council, who are about to re-take control of their own housing services.

Charnwood felt obliged to set up one of the ubiquitous "arm's-length" housing bodies after auditors (whose primary purpose was to encourage these spurious hybrids) scored the in-house service a big fat zero, which was always nonsense.  Now, apparently, 75% of tenants want their council back in charge - and elected members plan to invest no less than £60 million in their housing stock over the next five years.  You can read the full story here.

Harborough, we can safely assume, plans to invest something closer to the aforementioned big fat zero.

Charnwood have also refused planning consent for the former hospital site in Baxter Gate which doesn't conform with their Town Centre Master Plan.  Again, not something I can see happening in Harborough.  Oh for a Lutterworth Town Centre Master Plan!

New Planning regime

Members will have heard on the news that the Coalition's new planning regime launched today.  They say it will be simpler, opponents say it will mean concreting over the countryside.  Members can judge for themselves.  The document itself is downloadable here.

HDC Core Strategy



Last November Harborough District Council adopted its Core Strategy for planning.  This supercedes some, but not all, of the hard-fought-for policies in the Local Plan.  Essentially, it accords with the Coalition's 'light-touch' for development control which in turn basically means no meaningful control whatsoever. 

The all-embracing get-out clause in terms of planning gain (the only way communities have achieved anything out of the tsunami of development since the 1980s) is, to my mind, policy CS12(d) of the core strategy - planning gain will not be allowed to affect the financial viability of the scheme.  How incompetent would an accountant need to be to fail to get under that hurdle?

Most of the key documents are easily accessed via the link in the blog post above, but I also recommend to members' attention the Strategic Land Availability Assessment documents which are available here, and which are still open to representations until January 20 2012.