WNC New Local Plan Development – Summary at July 1st 2024
As part of the West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) development of a new local plan, in June 2024, East Farndon Parish Council (EFPC) responded to submit our drawn Village Confines, 4 nominations for Local Green Spaces and a request to extend the WNC Special Landscape Area within which East Farndon is located. These requests will remain in a pending status until the new WNC local plan is formally accepted and published in 2025. The EFPC submissions can be viewed in map form by clicking the links below.
Local Green Space Nominations Map
Also, most people will know that East Farndon has medieval settlement remains in the village and this is a Historic England Scheduled Monument. This can be viewed in map form by clicking the link below.
Medieval Settlement Remains & Scheduled Monument Map
Major Housing Development – Summary at July 1st 2024
The parcels of land in the WNC spatial options strategy and call for sites documents, identified for potential major housing developments between East Farndon and Market Harborough, remain in the latest / new WNC local plan. The good news is that all of these areas have been marked as not suitable and thefore will not be going ahead into the new housing areas to be developed for this plan. It remains the case that Harborough District Council (HDC) could request these development areas from WNC to include in the new HDC local plan. This is unlikely, but EFPC will continue to monitor closely the development of both the WNC and HDC new local plans.
Major Housing Development – Previous Activity
EFPC met on 9th November 2021. A number of residents attended, and it was unanimously agreed that EFPC would object in the strongest possible manner to the proposals to build 2,000+ houses on land between East Farndon and Market Harborough.
Following the visit by our then local MP, Chris Heaton-Harris, on 14th Jan 2022, he confirmed his 100% support for the EFPC objections to these developments. He made his views known on his official social media and contacted Historic England on our behalf, who sent the following reply.
“Historic England has provided comments to West Northamptonshire Council’s (WNC) Spatial Options Consultation, which includes the proposed allocation at East Farndon. Our response expressed concern regarding the potential impact on the scheduled monument and advised that a detailed heritage assessment would be required at an early stage to ensure its significance is preserved, including contributions made by its setting. This would include areas of ridge and furrow that preserve the former medieval open field system and therefore make a positive contribution to the significance of the monument.
Note that the scheduled monument referred to by Historic England, relates to East Farndon medieval settlement remains. You can see the details by clicking this link, https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1017190?section=official-list-entry
The World War II crash site will be protected under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986. It is an offence under section 2 of this act to tamper, damage, move, remove or unearth remains. Further information on this can be found at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/aviation-archaeology. The Parish Council can highlight their concerns regarding unlawful activity with the Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre (JCCC) who licence lawful investigation of crash sites and will be able to advise further.”
Councillor Phil King, leader (at that time) of Harborough District Council (HDC), commented on the Facebook of Chris Heaton-Harris as follows, “I am not expecting that these sites, in adjoining West Northants will be required to deliver the anticipated housing needs for the Harborough district, as we review our adopted Harborough Local Plan”
Map of the Proposed Housing Development
In early October 2021, WNC published a new Spatial Options Consultation document. This contained details of two potential major housing developments on land between East Farndon and Market Harborough. An extract from the WNC document, page 33, is repeated below, together with a map taken from Appendix 4, identifying the land areas being considered for development.
“An area of land situated to the South of Market Harborough has been promoted previously through the call for sites process with a potential capacity of approximately 2,000 dwellings. Whilst the site is well-related to Market Harborough and would enable access for sustainable travel modes it does feature some notable constraints, part of the area is identified as special landscape area and it is relatively close to nearby scheduled monuments. Further historic assets exist in East Farndon and any development would need to protect against coalescence.“
“Given the relationship of the area with Market Harborough, it is acknowledged that development in this location could help to meet the housing needs of Harborough District. As part of fulfilling requirements related to the duty to cooperate, discussions have taken place with officers at Harborough District Council and at present, given they are in the formative stages of updating their local plan it is not possible to establish at this time whether there is a need for land in this area to come forward. However, mindful that the WNSP covers the period to 2050 it felt appropriate to acknowledge the long-term development potential in this area and the need to maintain constructive dialogue with Harborough District Council moving forward.“
Ref 64 (see map above). Up to 2,170 homes on the right-hand side of the road between East Farndon to Market Harborough. This has been recommended to proceed to more detailed assessment with the site available before 2025.
Ref 136 (see maps above). Up to 1,050 homes on the left-hand side of the road between East Farndon to Market Harborough. Note that on the original document, this area was described as, “has not been recommended to proceed to more detailed assessment”. WNC have written to EFPC to say that this was an error, and that this area is also proceeding to a more detailed assessment.
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