BABTAG Update

New Pinch
After 6 months’ closure Barkbythorpe Road reopened on 21st August to reveal the construction of two new accesses to Phase 1 of Thorpebury and a new pinch on the brow of the hill designed to deter vans and lorries travelling north through Barkby Thorpe and Barkby. BABTAG is checking that the width is sufficiently narrow to achieve this aim.
Street Lighting on Barkbythorpe Road
The reopening has revealed a chain of lamp posts marching all the way from the new pinch to the entrance to Barkby Thorpe village. As this stretch of road will remain rural with fields either side even on completion of Thorpebury BABTAG is questioning why this unexpected urban intrusion of street lighting has been installed on a country road as it will cause light pollution and degrade the rural environment. It is all the more puzzling as at a later stage in Thorpebury’s development Barkbythorpe Road will no longer be a through route north to Barkby, Thurmaston and Syston.
Southern Access Road
From correspondence seen by BABTAG it is clear that both the developers and City of Leicester are blaming each other for the failure to agree on a start to the construction of the southern access road from the Leicester ring road through Hamilton park to Thorpebury. The root of the dispute is the price the developers will need to pay the city to acquire the necessary land for the road. However the clock is ticking as, according to the planning conditions, the number of houses will stall at 575 unless the road is built.
Traffic Mitigation Measures
BABTAG welcomes the new 30mph limit on the length of Barkbythorpe Road from the city boundary to Barkby Thorpe but has heard nothing from County Highways about when the traffic mitigation measures agreed with the developers will be installed in and around Barkby. They are due at the time of occupation of the first houses of Phase 1 which may well be before the New Year.
Charnwood’s portion of Leicester’s unmet need for housing
Charnwood, along with all the other district authorities surrounding the City is obliged to supply a proportion of the houses that the city cannot accommodate within its borders. So on top of meeting its local need of 17,776 (1,111 houses per year up to 2037) Charnwood will now have to build an extra 78 homes per year up to 2034 to meet its allocation of 1,248 from Leicester’s unmet need total of 18,700.
Charnwood Local Plan Examination Delay
Open season for developers in Charnwood looks to continue for several more months if not years as the Examination in Public of the Charnwood Local Plan (which sets the number of houses to be built) due to take place this July has been postponed to a new date yet to be fixed. In the meantime because Charnwood cannot fulfill it statutory need for a five year housing supply developers can submit opportunistic planning applications with a good chance that they will be approved.
Another new estate – 251 houses
A case in point, because of the delay to the local Plan, is the application for 251 houses at the junction of Queniborough Road, Ridgemere Lane and Barkby Road where Jelsons are wanting to develop a site that has yet to be approved in the new Plan. At present the road between Barkby and Queniborough is still recognisably a rural road. This urban development mid-way between the villages will see urban sprawl into what is essentially a rural environment and will affect the character of the area and will reduce substantially the amount of separation between Barkby, Syston and Queniborough.
Owen Bentley
Chairman BABTAG