Work begins on controversial 600-home estate in Harborough

Work has started on a controversial new 600-home estate in Market Harborough.
The massive Overstone Park scheme at Clack Hill off Kettering Road is going ahead almost two years after getting the planning green light.The massive Overstone Park scheme at Clack Hill off Kettering Road is going ahead almost two years after getting the planning green light.
The massive Overstone Park scheme at Clack Hill off Kettering Road is going ahead almost two years after getting the planning green light.

The massive Overstone Park scheme at Clack Hill off Kettering Road is going ahead almost two years after getting the planning green light.

Teams of workmen are being drafted in to put up fences and set up the sprawling 88-acre site for the huge construction project.

Objectors to the blueprint on the outskirts of the town were led by the highly-influential Market Harborough Civic Society.

Hitting out at the time planning permission was granted in May 2018, Society chairman John Tillotson said: “Kettering Road would be choked with traffic - and there’s already a bottleneck at the bottom of the hill, under the railway bridge.

“It’s too much, too soon for Market Harborough.

“Too many houses are being built before a proper infrastructure can be created.”

Braybrooke Parish Council said the vast development on rising ground would “detract from the natural beauty” of the valley it overlooked.

Other local objectors said the development would “generate a totally unacceptable level of traffic”, be visually overpowering and trigger road gridlock.

The estate will stretch from the top of Clack Hill down to the railway line before swooping behind Shrewsbury Avenue and The Heights.

Overstone Park will bring around 1,500 new people into Harborough over the next decade.

The scheme is being built by Ibstock-based housebuilder Davidsons.

The major plan also includes a new primary school with sports hall, a local centre including shops and health facilities and 30 acres of public open space.

Two new roundabouts will also be built.

The estate will be accessed by a new roundabout off Kettering Road while a second roundabout will be built at the Kettering Road/A6 junction.

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