Council approves changes to major homes plan

The Lutterworth East development was approved in 2020

A council has approved changes to a major development that will allow a distribution site to be built before thousands of new homes.

Leicestershire County Council secured planning permission from Harborough District Council in 2020 to create 2,750 new homes, 40% of which would be affordable.

The proposal included warehousing restricted in size at the Lutterworth East site.

Now the planning committee at Harborough District Council has granted permission for larger warehousing units and a target for affordable homes of between 10-40%.

The county council says its scheme would be unviable without the changes, blaming increasing construction costs since the original planning permission was granted.

South Leicestershire MP Alberto Costa said he was going to refer the decision to the Secretary of State.

Costa said the changes to the proposals would leave Lutterworth "sandwiched between Magna Park to the west and a new logistics park to the east".

South Leicestershire MP Alberto Costa speaking to Harborough's planning committee

Lutterworth councillor Richard Nunn also spoke in objection to the proposals, saying the current Local Plan was being ignored.

He was also concerned about the changes to the number of affordable homes that would be built at Lutterworth East.

He told the meeting it would mean a cut from 1,100 affordable homes, to as few as 275.

Those numbers were described by one officer as a "pessimistic worst-case scenario" - and it was pointed out that the affordable homes target would be subject to review as the development was built.

The scheme plays a big part in the district's current Local Plan. The meeting heard that if the county council found the scheme unaffordable and abandoned it, the district would face having to find new locations for the housing and industrial space.

The county council says, with the latest planning approval, construction work could start on Lutterworth East in 2026.