Gigaclear has recently announced that it has received enough expressions of interest from the Welland Valley area that it is now able to go into stage two of deploying superfast broadband and start taking orders. If you live in one of the Leicestershire villages of Blaston, Bringhurst, Cranoe, Drayton, Hallaton, Horninghold, Nevill Holt, Medbourne, Slawston […]

At the last meeting of the Cabinet there was a report on the new School Place Planning strategy which should have been uncontroversial. Unfortunately the recommendations also included a late addition of a new key priority aimed at removing primary schools which take pupils aged 4 – 10 years old. This would have significant consequences […]

Residents in rural areas have had the short end of the stick when it comes to broadband. New infrastructure has always been rolled out in densely populated areas first, and the further your property is from an exchange, the more broadband signals degrade under copper wires. For this reason, the Government set up a rural […]

I am writing to provide an update on the situation on home to school transport policy as there have been significant developments since my last post on it. When the Cabinet first announced the consultation on changes to school transport, the proposal was simply to the ‘nearest school’ with an available place. This would have […]

When the Conservatives announced their intentions last November to pursue a new Home to School Transport policy based on ‘nearest school only’, Simon Galton, leader of the Liberal Democrat group, left comments exposing the flaws with such an approach. Finding the Tory approach completely unacceptable, the Liberal Democrats have used the time to work up […]

Simon Galton has published a list of sites put forward to Harborough District Council to be protected as Green Space. The National Planning Policy Framework specifes that local communities through Local Plans and Neighbourhood Plans should be able to identify green areas of particular importance to them for special protection. This is the list of […]

Residents in Thurnby & Houghton Ward which comprise the villages of Scraptoft, Thurnby, Bushby, Houghton and Stoughton will get the chance to vote twice this Thursday! Once for Simon Galton for the Leicestershire County Council elections who has served the area for over 24 years, and once for Peter Elliott to join the Harborough District […]

A Government appointed Inspector has rejected 4 out 5 planning appeals by developers and landowners and upheld the decision taken by Harborough District Council’s Planning Committee to refuse planning permission for a total of 325 houses.  The sites where planning permission has been refused are: Coles Nursery – 175 dwellings, East of Station Lane, Scraptoft […]

As promised, Liberal Democrat County Councillors have been working hard monitoring the impact of a Bus Review launched earlier in the year. The bus review that the County Council conducted was designed to achieve around £750,000 of savings from public transport. It was a cross party review but the Lib Dems on the panel insisted […]

The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) sets out the Government’s planning polices for England and reduces more than 1000 pages of guidance and requirements on Councils to just over 50 pages. This key document is now a “material consideration” when dealing with planning applications and preparing local plans. Since the draft NPPF was published in […]