Settlement Boundary

population size among the communities making up the PUA, Glenfield has probably exceeded its obligations by between 70 and 100 residences. However, Blaby District Council is revisiting the Delivery Development Plan and residential allocations to deliver the identified outstanding housing requirements indicating a need to identify suitable sites for housing for at least 660 dwellings in the PUA. Glenfield’s contribution is to be 37 homes at Nursery Rise. No further housing allocations are proposed in Glenfield in the Delivery DPD.

At the time of preparing the Neighbourhood Plan, Blaby District Council cannot confirm the housing requirement for Glenfield as the preparation of the new Local Plan is not sufficiently advanced.

Although the Parish Council undertook a site selection process to identify potential development sites, it was ultimately decided to avoid making any residential allocations whilst there was so much uncertainty over the extent of development required in the Parish through the period of the new Local Plan.

The Parish Council have committed to revisit this issue once the timescales for the Adoption of the new Local Plan are known and the residential requirement becomes clearer.

Through the standard methodology, the District Council anticipates around 339 new dwellings will be required in Glenfield over the timescales for the new Local Plan. If the impacts of Brexit and COVID do not lead to a review of housing need given the unused business and retail premises in the major towns and cities and Glenfield Parish is obliged to meet a new requirement, a reassessment of suitable housing sites will be made in an early review of the Neighbourhood Plan.

In historical terms, communities like Glenfield have often been protected by the designation of a village envelope (or settlement boundary) adopted in a statutory Local Plan. With a settlement boundary in place development is only permitted inside the envelope or outside it, in carefully controlled circumstances (for example to provide affordable housing or to meet the needs of the community). The purpose of the settlement boundary is to ensure that sufficient land is identified to meet residential need and that this is available in the most sustainable locations.

Settlement boundaries were originally established by Blaby District Council in order to clarify where all new development activity is best located. They have been used to define the extent of a developed part of a settlement and to distinguish between areas where, in planning terms, development would be acceptable in principle, such as in the main settlement, and where it would not be acceptable, generally in the least sustainable locations such as in the open countryside. Such unfettered and/or unsustainable growth would risk ribbon or piecemeal development and the merging of distinct settlements to the detriment of the community and visual amenity of the area.

The Settlement Boundary for Glenfield from within the Local Plan Delivery DPD is shown here to reinforce the boundary contained in the DPD.

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