New villages proposed to meet need for housing
Area needs to provide thousands of homes
CREATING new villages or towns could be the solution to delivering thousands of homes the borough will be expected to provide beyond 2026.
Sites have already been allocated for around 9,000 houses to be constructed in Hinckley and Bosworth within the next decade.
But the authority, along with other districts and the county council, are starting to look even further ahead to try and design ideas about how the whole county will grow in terms of urban, business and infrastructure developments.
Leader of Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council, Mike Hall, said previously much of the emphasis on meeting housing need had been about extending the boundaries of existing settlements.
Prior to the council’s five-year site allocation being produced this caused considerable controversy as housebuilders were able to push through developments despite local concerns.
It meant many village areas saw farmland turned into estates much to the chagrin of residents.
Councillor Hall (Con, Burbage Sketchley and Stretton) said: “Unless the population starts reducing, which is unlikely, we need to build more houses and so we are looking forward into the future.
“We are committed to only having development where it is needed but we do need to look at the strategy for that. We have had a couple of workshops involving parish representatives, some developers and architects and we have been investigating alternatives for urban growth such as new villages.
“We have 17 key rural centres and the question is should they be expanded or should we be building new hamlets or even new towns, and if that is the case where would they be most appropriately located.
“Currently the strategy is about extending the existing urban areas but everyone knows if this happens on too large a scale it can destroy small towns and villages.
“We want to protect the nature of our towns and villages, that’s not to say there won’t be any expan- sion there, but we want to find sites which are not next to existing settlements to allow new settlements to be built where people want to live.”
By next year Government agencies providing key infrastructure improvements, such as Highways England, are set to complete investment plans up until 2026 so unless early blueprints for growth are prepared by district and local authorities it will be hard to press the need for projects.
The strategic growth plan was open for public consultation until the middle of September with views expressed going to inform future work.