CPRE responds to North West Leicestershire Local Plan

CPRE Leicestershire has submitted a neutral response to the North West Leicestershire Local Plan Regulation 19 consultation, with the scale of strategic warehousing and its potential impact on the countryside among our key concerns.

The new North West Leicestershire Local Plan will guide development across the district until 2042.

There are important elements of the plan that CPRE Leicestershire welcomes, including commitments to protecting the National Forest, Charnwood Forest and River Mease.

However, our Regulation 19 response also identifies significant areas of concern, particularly around the scale and location of future industrial development.

More than one million square metres of warehousing

One of the biggest issues highlighted in our response is strategic warehousing.

The plan identifies a requirement for more than one million square metres of strategic warehousing, accounting for 44% of the identified need across Leicestershire.

Development on this scale has the potential to significantly change parts of North West Leicestershire.

Our concern is not simply the amount of floorspace being proposed. Large industrial buildings and the infrastructure needed to support them can have wider effects on the landscape, traffic and the rural character of surrounding communities.

The council's Regulation 19 plan includes a number of strategic warehousing allocations, with earlier decisions on their inclusion subject to transport modelling, viability and infrastructure requirements.

We want to see stronger safeguards ensuring that employment development only proceeds where its impact on the surrounding landscape has been properly addressed.

Protecting the identity of our villages

The relationship between major development and existing settlements is particularly important.

We are concerned about the cumulative effect that development could have on historic villages such as Diseworth and want to see Areas of Separation strictly maintained so that individual communities retain their identity.

This is particularly relevant to the proposed new settlement at Isley Woodhouse.

The Local Plan proposes around 4,250 homes at Isley Woodhouse, with 1,950 expected during the plan period to 2042. The plan also identifies an Area of Separation intended to help Diseworth remain a distinct settlement.

CPRE Leicestershire wants greater certainty that the infrastructure needed to support development on this scale will be delivered at the appropriate time.

Growth shouldn't come at any cost

North West Leicestershire has an important role to play in providing homes and employment opportunities, but numerical targets should not override proper consideration of landscape and environmental impacts.

Our response calls for modifications that provide greater confidence that employment development will respect the landscape, Areas of Separation will continue to protect the identity of settlements and major new housing will be supported by the infrastructure communities need.

Our aim is to see a Local Plan that genuinely balances future housing and employment requirements with the protection of the countryside that makes North West Leicestershire distinctive.

We will continue to follow the plan as it moves through the next stages.

Help give Leicestershire’s countryside a stronger voice

Our planning work is one of the ways CPRE Leicestershire speaks up for the countryside and the communities that value it. By becoming a member, you can help strengthen that voice.