Plans approved for nearly 180 homes to be added to housing estate in Harborough

However, one local councillor is concerned there will not be enough school places available to keep pace with the expansion of the Airfield Farm site, in Leicester Road, on the outskirts of the town.

Planning officials from Harborough District Council granted the permission to the applicant, William Davis Homes, at a meeting last month.

It follows a previous planning application, submitted in 2017, which set out a proposal to build more than 900 homes, a primary school and several sports fields on the former airfield.

A large business centre been built since the application was approved, as well as parts of the new housing estate.

The new application is the fourth phase of the development and 18 of the new 179 houses will be listed as ‘affordable’ homes.

However, while members of the planning committee voted in favour of the next phase, concerns were raised by other local representatives.

Councillor Paul Bremner, of the Lubenham ward, said he was worried about the primary school that is planned for on the site and its capacity to support the new houses.

He said: “The school is only planning on opening to reception children in September 2024, so I don’t think that is sufficient enough for a school to open for just one year group on a size of development like Airfield Farm..”

Access to the site will be from the existing roundabout on Leicester Road, next to the recently built business centre.

More than 40 per cent of the new homes will be three beds and a further 36 per cent of the new homes will have four bedrooms.

The farmland was once home to a number of WWII bomber planes and in 1943 the site became home to the Wellington Bombers of No 14 Operational Training Unit of RAF Bomber Command.

Flying ceased in August, 1945, and it later became a British Army vehicle depot. It was turned over to agriculture when the Army left in the late 1950s.

Councillors on the district council’s planning committee, sitting on Tuesday, February 26, voted unanimously for the plans to go ahead and the building of the next phase will begin in due course.

In a separate housing application heard recently, officials at Harborough District Council have denied planning permission for a proposal to build the 34 homes on a patch of green space north of Broughton Way, in Broughton Astley.

The site currently has no primary use and was described in planning documents as a stretch of “scrub grassland”.

Ten ‘self-build’ and a number of ‘affordable’ homes were featured in the plan, but members of the council’s planning committee said the proposal did not respect the area’s wildlife, appearance and character and would use land which separates Broughton Astley and Sutton in the Elms.

Joe Nugent, a planning agent representing the applicant, Telford Five Ltd, denied those claims and said the development “would not affect hedgerows or trees on the site.”

He added that an appeal would be launched against the council’s decision.

However, the planning committee, sitting on on Tuesday, February 26, voted unanimously to refuse the application.