Sites of Environmental Significance

Area of Separation

Areas of Separation are areas of open land designated specifically to maintain the character and identity of neighbouring settlements by preventing their coalescence. Inclusion of this policy in this Neighbourhood Plan is supported by and is in general conformity with Blaby District Core Strategy policy CS17 (2013), specifically paragraph 5, which states: “… opportunities to designate new Areas of Separation will be explored in association with development growth (including housing and employment) over the plan period”.

The allocation of the old Western Park Golf Course site for housing in City of Leicester’s strategic plans (and in its draft new Local Plan) includes the whole of the golf course located within the City. The section of the former golf course that is situated within the Blaby District is highly valued by local residents and accordingly is designated in the Neighbourhood Plan as Local Green Space (see policies ENV 1). Designation of the complete area identified in figure 11 as Area of Separation will ensure its value in preventing the coalescence of Leicester with Glenfield across the last (2020) remaining wedge of open land between the two and within this part of the Leicester conurbation. It is also of historical landscape significance as the last surviving open remnant of the Kirby Frith parcel (‘Park’) of the medieval Leicester Forest (Fox & Russell, 1948; Squires 2015). This policy will fall away if the inclusion of the land as a Local Green Space is agreed.

POLICY ENV 7: AREA OF SEPARATION – To prevent further physical and visual coalescence of the City of Leicester with south Glenfield, the area identified in figure 11 is designated as an Area of Separation. Development proposals in this area will only be supported if they are located and designed, to maintain or where possible enhance the area’s ‘open countryside’ character and its recreational and ecological value.

Figure 11: Area of Separation

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Note: the following policies (ENV 8 to ENV 10) are in general conformity with DPD DM12.

Sites of historic environment significance

These are sites with extant and visible archaeological or historical features or proven buried archaeology, as recorded in the Historic England and Leicestershire Historic Environment Records (HER) databases. The Leics. HER documents more sites than are shown here, because it includes all archaeological and historical site records, including a number of ‘find-spots’ and archive-based records that have no known, surviving, on-site features to be protected. Although formally in the planning system, this Neighbourhood Plan highlights the extant sites of historic environment significance to enable the following policy to be applied in Glenfield whenever a proposed development coincides with them.

Figure 12: Sites of historical environment significance

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