Campaigners say there is too much planned development on green spaces.
Leicester City Council in the Town Hall(Image: Caitlin James)
Plans on where more than 20,000 homes could be built across Leicester have been formally adopted – despite failing to get support from nearly half of officials.
Leicester City Council’s Local Plan, which has been in the making since 2020, was officially voted into action at a full council meeting last night (Thursday, March 26).
The document earmarks land where 20,730 new homes could be built over the next 10 years and has attracted criticism from campaigners who say there is too much planned development on green spaces.
Over 70 per cent of development in the plan is bound for brownfield sites.
However, for residents of Beaumont Leys, proposals for around six football pitches worth of industrial development and a Gypsy and Traveller site on Beaumont Park were top of the agenda.
Ward councillor and leader of concerned campaigners, Hazel Orton (Conservative), told members: “The residents have fought tooth and nail to save their last remaining green space.
“Over 3,000 people have signed a petition which was refused a debate in this chamber. So here we are. Residents ignored, many feeling it was a done deal from the start.”
She claimed the plans amounted to “nothing more than the desecration of a much loved and well used green space”.
Cllr Hazel Orton (Conservative). Image via Leicester City Council. (Image: Leicester City Council)
Cllr Orton also criticised city mayor Sir Peter Soulsby for leaving the room during her speech.
Conservative councillors said they wouldn’t vote to adopt the plan if leaders could not commit to reducing the scale of this development. Greens and Lib Dems backed their amendment, and it was taken to a vote.
During this process, Lord Mayor Teresa Aldred reminded councillors to behave after Cllr Ashiedu Joel said she heard someone mutter “coward” as Labour councillors shut the amendment down.
Councillor Sarah Russell (Labour) explained her vote, arguing that restarting the whole process would actually leave residents more vulnerable to unwanted development.
Cllr Sarah Russell (Labour). Image via Leicester City Council. (Image: Leicester City Council)
She said: “We saw local authorities around the city not be able to put through local plans over the last 20 years. The result of not being able to get their local plan through a meeting like this was that they had sites developed that they absolutely didn’t want developed, and they had no way of defending against planning permissions.
“Huge developments went up without proper infrastructure in place, without education in place, because they had no local plan. The Local Plan actually is the best bit of control the council’s got in terms of managing growth and managing development.”
The document also makes provision for 412 houses, a Gypsy and Traveller site, employment land, a recycling centre, and some open space on the former Western Park Golf Course.
Cllr Russell added: “The plan isn’t to build houses over the whole thing. The plan is to do a really mixed development where you get some good green space that people can actively use with a bit of housing.
“I do want green space, but I also want people in our city to have somewhere they can live.
“We’ve already had to get the county and various districts to take whole chunks of our housing growth because we can’t fit it all in here. Our city is expanding. I want people to have a future here, and I want them to do that in spaces that work for them and for us to control it, so that actually they get green space alongside their housing.”
Ultimately, 28 members voted in favour of the plan and the 18 opposition councillors present voted against it.
News of the decision has been labelled “depressing” by Steve Walters, a resident who has walked on the Western Park Golf Course daily for over 30 years.
Western Golf Course Area Action Group campaign. Image via Steve Walters.(Image: Steve Walters)
His campaign body, Western Golf Course Area Action Group, have been concerned about the Local Plan since work began six years ago, and made a final stand outside the Town Hall prior to the meeting.
He said: “Last night’s city council vote approving adoption of the Local Plan was very disappointing but not surprising.
“Opposition councillors put up a good fight and I applaud their sound arguments in defence of saving green spaces.
“Deputy mayor Elly Cutkelvin tried to placate opposition voices, saying the Local Plan was ‘only a high level strategic document’, and that the real opportunity lies at the planning phase.
“The deputy mayor surely knows that historically, development proposals that have been approved in a Local Plan process tend to get a green light at the planning phase.
“It is a sad day for Leicester and I can only hope this ill-thought plan never comes into fruition.”
Other areas earmarked for development include land west of Ashton Green (670 houses), land north of the A46 Bypass (420 houses), and land west of Anstey Lane (336 houses).