With less than one week left to respond, we want to make sure local residents are aware of a really important public consultation taking place which will influence where thousands of new houses will be built in Harborough District. The Harborough District Council Local Plan document looks at nine different ways new housing could be distributed up to 2031.

One of the options includes a proposal put forward by local landowners and developers for a large Strategic Development Area (SDA) of up to 1200 houses on the edge of Scraptoft, Thurnby and Bushby with a new relief road cutting through the valley linking the A47 to a new roundabout on the corner of Covert Lane and Station Lane. This would comprise a massive urban extension into the Countryside to the east of Scraptoft and Thurnby and would be in addition to the 700 houses which already have planning permission but are not yet built.

Other options the public are being invited to comment on include concentrating development in an SDA at Kibworth or Lutterworth which would mean lower housing levels elsewhere. Alternatively the Council could decide to promote a rural option which would distribute the houses around a large number of smaller villages which have had little development in recent years.

Many people have come along to the drop in sessions we have held with parish councils in recent weeks. Speaking to people at these events there are very real concerns about the impact this scale of development would have on local infrastructure such as roads so we want to make sure as many people as possible let the Council know what they think before the 30th Oct when the consultation ends.

The Council is encouraging people to respond to the Options Consultation document on line. This can be viewed at: www.harborough.gov.uk/strategic-planning-consultations

The document includes maps of the SDAs and details of each option. However, If you don’t have access to the internet or you prefer to respond by post, please click here for a written summary of the 9 options which you can print off and fill in to indicate whether you support or object to each option.

We hope you will take a few minutes to say whether you support or object to each option. The options which include a Strategic Development Area of at least 1,000 houses on the edge of Scraptoft, Thurnby and Bushby are options 4, 7 and 8 . If you do not want to see this level of development pursued in the Local Plan you need to Object to these options.

As your local elected representatives we are doing everything we can to raise awareness of these proposals but we need the community to respond to the consultation in large numbers so the Council knows how strongly people feel about this.