Plan for 600 homes on display to public

The proposal, still to be approved by Harborough District Council, will be on display at an exhibition to be held at Market Harborough Leisure Centre, Northampton Road, next week.

The exhibition opening times are Thursday, June 9 and Friday, June 10 from 2pm to 8pm.

The latest scheme calls for the building of up to 600 new houses, a primary school and a local centre including shops, a doctors’ surgery and a community centre, on an 88-acre site the developers call Overstone Park.

The site is off Clack Hill, between the top of Kettering Road and the railway line.

In the plan on the right, Kettering Road can be seen joining the A6 at the top right hand corner.

The much smaller Overstone House development is the one being built now.

David Lane, of DLA Planning Ltd, the planning agent for the site, said: “I am pleased to be presenting our proposals which will bring new facilities, a new school, and new opportunities to Market Harborough.

“I would like to reassure residents that we will be sensitive to the needs and views of the local community throughout, and I’d like to invite everybody down to the exhibitions we are running at the leisure centre.”

Access to the proposed new Overstone Park estate would be from a new roundabout on Kettering Road, and via a new road link through Overstone House.

The developers have also suggested traffic lights at the junction of Kettering Road and the A6 bypass.

The block of land appears to be owned by a company in Jersey in the Channel Islands and private individuals in London and Berkshire.

Ward county councillor Dr Sarah Hill has already told the Mail: “I fear a scheme like that will just bring gridlock to that part of town.”

She said she was thinking of the pinch-point on Kettering Road under the railway bridge, the Kettering Road roundabout with access roads to Waitrose, Aldi and Lidl, and the knock-on effect down a host of local side-roads.

John Tillotson, the chairman of Market Harborough Civic Society, warned: “The town is expanding too quickly. This scheme for 600 more new homes is too much, too soon.”