Leicestershire village & countryside under siege from developers

Hundreds of acres of countryside that have been lived on and farmed since Saxon times are now under siege from numerous major developments, bringing real threats to wildlife as well as traffic congestion, 24-hour noise and light pollution, air quality issues and increased risk of flooding.

East Midlands Airport, which in July 2025 was fined almost £900,000 for polluting Diseworth Brook, is behind a planning application to develop agricultural land adjacent to the same village in conjunction with Prologis, a ‘global leader in logistics real estate’.

A competing application by another global logistics real estate organisation Segro, is now bypassing normal local planning processes and being considered at national government level under Development Consent Order (DCO) – usually only used for major infrastructure projects such as railways or power stations.

Both applications are vying to be part of the East Midlands Freeport’s East Midlands Airport and Gateway Industrial Cluster, also known as EMAGIC. Freeports – now known as Industrial Strategy Zones – were championed by Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak even before Keir Starmer’s current Labour government. These are designated areas where the usual planning rules do not apply and local people have less power to influence decisions. Whilst big businesses love freeports because they offer major customs privileges and tax cuts, there also major concerns about how they are run – as shown as by the recent stories about irregularities at Teesport.

Whichever application succeeds, this would mean up to 250-acre area of countryside being swallowed up and replaced by a massive development of giant B8 megasheds on a logistics park the size of 125 football pitches.

On the other side of the village, meanwhile, a planning application has been submitted by North West Leicestershire District Council on proposals developed by Harworth Group and Caesarea Development Holdings for a new town to be called Isley Woodhouse. This will be almost the size of Ashby de la Zouch, with 4250 houses and an estimated 10,000 residents. North West Leicestershire District Council has earmarked 781 acres to the south west of the airport for the new settlement – which will wipe out farmland and fields the size of almost 400 football pitches.

Diseworth resident Emma Wiggs MBE, a triple Paralympic Gold Medal winning canoeist, fears her village is being attacked on all sides from multiple planning applications that threaten to decimate its rural landscape and suffocate an agricultural community that has endured for thousands of years. Commenting on behalf of Protect Diseworth, Emma Wiggs says:

“It feels like Diseworth is being attacked on all fronts. Not only have we been tackling the Freeport / EMAGIC applications, but now we’re fending off the development of thousands of houses too. Add in the 40-acre solar farm that has already been approved at the Moto service station and various local and neighbourhood plans we’ve been asked to comment on and we’re beginning to suffer from ‘consultation fatigue’. Like most people, I’d rather be doing my day job, which in my case is being out in my canoe, than spending time on consultation exercises. Nevertheless, just as I’ve done in my canoeing career, the residents of this village will keep fighting and we hope our perseverance will pay off.”

Richard Brackenbury, spokesperson for Protect Diseworth adds:

“As a small village of only a few hundred adults, as the various applicants know, we have limited fire power to fight back against all these threats. What’s more, even if we had all the time and expertise to respond to each of these applications, it seems as if no one is considering the cumulative effects of these multiple developments, not just on our village, but also the surrounding countryside, the roads and all other infrastructure that will be required to support this level of overall development. This is not just a Diseworth issue, current Freeport and housing policies mean that many countryside villages could end up being under siege like this. We call on the various decision-making authorities involved to apply some common sense and joined up thinking to this situation and not to abandon centuries of rural tradition on the unproven promises of multinational moneymakers.”

Protect Diseworth is a local action group which aims to protect the community of Diseworth and the countryside that surrounds this rural conservation village. The group opposes the proposed development of agricultural land between the A453 and Clements Gate (Long Holden). This would effectively remove the “green lung” between the village and the Motorway/Moto Services. It is an attack on community, agriculture and wildlife as well as increasing risk of flooding. They have been joined in their campaign by CPRE Leicestershire (The Countryside Charity) whose purpose is to promote, protect and enhance the countryside for today’s community and future generations.
You can find out more about the Protect Diseworth campaign here: www.protectdiseworth.com 

 conservation.diseworth@gmail.com

Emma Wiggs MBE is a 3x Paralympic Champion, 5x Paralympic Medallist, 12x World Champion Paracanoe & 4x Paralympian. Off the water, Emma spends her time delivering inspirational speeches to senior businesspeople about overcoming challenges and applying her learning as well as the attitude and mental resolve that she attributes her success to in the workplace.