THE BIRSTALL POST MAR 2015
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First new housing at Ashton Green 100 NEW homes will be built at Ashton Green this year, the first of 3000 that are planned for a major new housing development at the Leicester City end of Greengate Lane. Leicester City Council has agreed to sell a 2.5 hectare site to Morris Homes for just over 100 family homes, including affordable housing. The site will house a range of three and four-bedroomed homes, designed to meet the environmental standards required for Ashton Green as a sustainable development. Securing this first land sale is an important milestone for the council as it has been unable to find a developer since planning permission was granted in 2010. The parcel of land was sold for £3million. It is located at Glebelands Wood, off Leicester Road, next to the Glebelands development. In 2014, the council altered its strategy for the development of Ashton Green to make it easier for different developers to take on a number of smaller parcels of land, rather than one developer taking on the whole scheme. Since then the council has installed highway infrastructure needed to make the site more attractive to developers. New walking and cycling routes and traffic-calming improvements are due to be installed to tie in with the Morris Homes scheme, which aims to be on site in the autumn. Ashton Green is planned as a sustainable new community including 3,000 new homes and according to Leicester City Council, will be the most significant and innovative housing scheme in Leicester in more than 30 years. It will make a significant contribution towards delivering the new homes needed in the city over the next 20 years. When complete, the Ashton Green scheme will include a wide range of family houses, including rental and lower-cost affordable homes, as well as employment land for new jobs, new schools, community and health facilities, Continued from page 1 news for families and the community as a whole. The next stage is for the Department for Education to send advisors to support the schools in deciding how to get the best value for money from the grant and a plan will then be put in place to make sure that the work is the least disruptive possible to teaching and learning."
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retail and public transport improvements. A third of the site will be kept as green space. The site will be well served by buses from an early stage, say the Council, and travel planning for residents, schools and workplaces could include schemes such as car clubs. Leicester City Mayor Peter Soulsby said: “It’s great news that a housing developer has been secured for this section of land, following a lot of infrastructure work by the city council to open up Ashton Green to prospective developers. “Creating 100 new homes will certainly help meet the need for housing in the city, and also gets development of the site off on the right footing. I look forward to the council working with Morris Homes to help bring their plans to life.” Regional managing director at Morris Homes, Adam Knight, added: "We have a strong history of building quality homes in Leicester, and award-winning properties that boast cost-saving sustainable features, and we are proud to be the first housebuilder to start work on this landmark scheme. "The emission-reducing features will help reduce energy bill costs for buyers, and the design of the properties will reflect the contemporary, sustainable homes available across our portfolio." Birstall Parish Council, and many local residents, have expressed concern about the impact the development will have on traffic on Greengate Lane. Birstall Parish Council Chair Ann Marshall said: "It has ben a long time coming but this development is going to be absolutely huge. We are being closed in on all sides in Birstall by development, we are really surrounded. "The traffic that comes down the A6 is unbelievable, and people coimg down Greengate Lane from Ashton Green will be joining that. "These developments on all sides make it increasingly difficult for us to remain a community. As everywhere melds into everywhere else we are all
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joined together with no distinction between places - we are losing our sense of community." In 2010 a traffic impact assessment produced by the City Council said that measures to deter traffic from entering
Greengate Lane would result in “no material impact on Greengate Lane with the traffic from Ashton Green”. The City Council have proposed the following traffic mitigation measures for Continued on page 4
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