Because this development does not stop at Great Glen's borders and neither do its consequences.
The proposed Strategic Development Area sits between the A6 and Gartree Road, between Oadby and Great Glen. But the impacts of adding thousands of homes to this location extend across the entire south Leicestershire county.
With no significant local employment, residents will commute daily in every direction - into Leicester city to the north, to Market Harborough to the south-east, to Magna Park and the M1 corridor at Lutterworth to the south-west. Every major and minor road across south Leicestershire becomes part of the daily commuter network for thousands of additional households. The A6, the A4304, the B6047, and the rural lanes connecting dozens of villages between Leicester and the M1 - none of them have the capacity for this. This is not a localised traffic problem. It is a strategic transport failure affecting the entire south Leicestershire road network from the Leicester ring road to the M1 at junction 20.
But traffic is only part of the picture. The flooding consequences extend downstream along the Washbrook and the River Sence, affecting communities well beyond the site boundary. The burden on GP surgeries, hospitals, schools, and utilities falls across a healthcare and education system that serves the whole of south Leicestershire - already critically overstretched, with GP provision at just 41 per 100,000 against a safe threshold of 56. There is no funded plan to address any of this.
This is a strategic failure affecting roads, healthcare, drainage infrastructure, and public services across south Leicestershire - from the Leicester ring road to the M1 junction 20, and every community in between. If you live anywhere in this part of Leicestershire, this is your fight too.
The site boundary sits in Harborough District, but the impacts land squarely in Oadby across every dimension.
Traffic: Gartree Road, Wigston Road, and the A6 through Oadby will carry the bulk of the additional vehicle movements. These are already congested at peak hours.
Flooding: the Washbrook floodplain runs directly through Oadby and is downstream of the development site. Thousands of additional impermeable surfaces - roofs, roads, driveways - increase surface water runoff into a system that already struggles. Your home, your insurance, and your safety are directly affected even if you are not adjacent to the site.
Healthcare and schools: Oadby's GP surgeries and schools serve a catchment that will absorb pressure from thousands of additional residents. There is no funded plan to expand provision.
Property values and character: the rural setting and green wedge that define the edge of Oadby would be permanently lost. The character of the area changes for every resident.
Oadby & Wigston Borough Council has also been forced to increase its own housing targets significantly. If Harborough's plan is found unsound, pressure to find alternative sites increases — and those sites may well be closer to Oadby than anyone would like.
Oadby residents have every reason to support this challenge.
Leicestershire County Council's own transport evidence identified the A6 through Kibworth as already operating at full capacity during peak hours, with a documented 'haloing effect' - commuter traffic already diverting off the A6 onto rural lanes through and around Kibworth to avoid the congestion. This development would dramatically worsen both problems.
But it is not just traffic. GP surgeries serving Kibworth operate within a healthcare system that Leicestershire's own data shows is already critically stretched - 41 GPs per 100,000 people against a safe threshold of 56. Thousands of additional residents drawing on the same system will lengthen waiting times for existing patients across the area, including Kibworth.
And the precedent matters. Once the green wedge between Oadby and Great Glen is breached, the case for resisting further development on adjacent and nearby land - including land relevant to Kibworth - becomes significantly weaker. This is the moment to stop that trajectory.
These villages already carry diverted commuter traffic from the congested A6 and Kibworth routes. Leicestershire County Council's own transport study specifically named routes through these communities as affected by the haloing effect - traffic heading towards Lutterworth and the M1 junction 20 via Shearsby Crossroads, Gilmorton, and beyond. The additional commuter traffic generated by thousands of new homes heading south and west to Magna Park and the M1 would make that problem significantly worse on narrow country lanes never designed for this volume.
The flooding risk is also relevant beyond the immediate site. The River Sence runs through this part of south Leicestershire, and increased surface water runoff from thousands of additional impermeable surfaces - roofs, roads, driveways - will raise flood risk downstream. Communities along the Sence corridor have a direct interest in this.
Healthcare catchments do not follow village boundaries. GP surgeries and secondary schools serving these communities operate within the same overstretched south Leicestershire system. More demand, no new funded provision.
And the planning precedent set here weakens protection for green land across the whole district. Once this green wedge is built on, the argument for protecting similar land elsewhere becomes harder to sustain.
This is a legitimate and important concern. The proposed SDA sits between the A6 and Gartree Road. But the 2008 eco-town proposal - which was defeated by community opposition - envisaged development on both sides of Gartree Road and south of the A6, creating a settlement of an entirely different scale. The current proposal can reasonably be read as the first phase of that wider vision.
Once the green wedge between Oadby and Great Glen is breached and the precedent is set, resisting further development on adjacent land becomes significantly harder. The planning principle of precedent is real: a permitted development in one location strengthens the case for the next one alongside it. Stopping this plan stops that trajectory before it starts.
Anyone registered as an interested party can attend the Inspectorate hearings and if you submitted an objection in the Reg 19 consultation (May 2025) you can make representations.
But the examination is a formal, quasi-judicial process. The Council will be represented by professional planning barristers. The site promoters and developers will be represented by professional planning barristers.
Without equivalent professional advocacy, the strongest community case can be outmanoeuvred on procedure, dismissed on technical grounds, or simply drowned out by the volume and sophistication of the professional submissions on the other side. A specialist planning barrister knows how to present evidence in the way an Inspector responds to, how to cross-examine the Council's witnesses, and how to ensure that every weakness in the plan is squarely and formally on the record.
That is not something a well-meaning resident can replicate, however articulate and well-informed they are.
STNT is a volunteer-run, non-political community group with no paid staff. All donations go to the legal fund and essential campaign costs - website, printing, and communications. We will publish details of expenditure.
Any funds remaining at the end of the campaign will be donated to Leicestershire charities.
The legal fund is being used for one purpose: to ensure that when the Inspector hears this case, STNT is as professionally represented as the Council and the developers.
No. Even if the Inspector ultimately finds the plan sound, professional representation at the examination ensures that every weakness has been formally recorded, every procedural failing has been challenged, and every weakness in the Council's evidence has been exposed on the record. Plus, the Inspector may force Harborough Council to modify aspects of the plan due to the weaknesses we flag up.
That record matters: it informs any subsequent legal challenge, it places conditions on the Inspector, and it ensures that if development does eventually proceed, the community's concerns about infrastructure, flooding, and viability are on the formal record and cannot be quietly ignored.
There is no scenario in which being properly represented is a waste.
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