Many residents have campaigned and even more objected to the housing development in this village particularly since the turn of the millennium. Reasons for this vary from opposition to the destruction of green field sites to the inadequacies in village infrastructure, for example, medical services, road network, sewers and school capacity, particularly Hall Orchard Primary School. Mostly, these objections have been dismissed and rubbished, falling to the need to maintain housing targets in Charnwood Borough and consequently planning applications approved either by Charnwood Borough Council or at a planning appeal.
During September 2019, a planning application was lodged with Charnwood Borough Council to build 135 houses on the field behind the Millennium Park on Melton Road. At the end of November 2019 the application was withdrawn. Those objecting, including Barrow Parish Council, pointed to conflict with the Local Neighbourhood Plan with the site outside the limits to development and the fact that there was more than the required five year supply of housing land approvals in the borough at the time. As before, many objectors referred to more loading on roads, medical services, sewers and local schools.
Are these objections the reason for the withdrawal of the application or more likely, in my view, the demands placed on the applicant by Leicestershire County Council (LCC) education department to provide a new primary school?
In summary the LCC education department has made a case for (S.106) contributions from the developer for the Melton Road site as below:
- Hall Orchard Primary School is in the final phase of expansion which will increase capacity to 630 places. This is the largest size for a primary school. Further expansion of the existing confined site is not possible.
- There are no schools within two miles of this development (Melton Road) that can be expanded. Therefore to accommodate this, a new 210-place school is required with a hectare (2.5 acres) of land to site it.
- This new school is required to mitigate the impact of this and other proposed development in this village and surrounding area and there is a suggestion that the cost could be shared between developers who secure planning permission.
- In the absence of a new school, or until the time one is built, and available, LCC will seek a contribution of £68,250 per annum in perpetuity for taxis to transport primary school children to local schools which have places available.
- The contributions are: Primary school - £590,976 + 1 hectare of land + potential transport costs.
- Secondary school (11 – 16) sector - £86,202.43 for Rawlins Academy, Quorn
- Special schools - £76,205.38 All special schools in Leicestershire are full and have a deficit of available places. Special schools are using their own teaching staff to teach their pupils in mainstream schools.
Total requirement - £753,383.81 + I hectare of land + potential transport costs for primary pupils.
Public consultation on a new draft plan for housing in Charnwood ended in midDecember 2019. This plan has been brought forward in response to revised housing targets imposed by the government. For this village, the draft plan shows an allocation of sites to provide 268 houses. The sites are behind the Millennium Park and on the opposite side of Melton Road. Note; this is a draft and is not, at the time of writing, adopted by our local authority, but if it is adopted it will overrule our local neighbourhood plan in any nonconforming aspect.
If these sites go forward for development then it is essential that the local planning authority, Charnwood Borough Council, imposes a condition on the developer(s) to provide funding for our local schools and this must include a new primary school for this village. LCC state that they are working with Charnwood Borough Council to identify a suitable site for a new primary school.
Alan Willcocks