Great Glen 180 Homes Refused Against Officer Advice

Harborough councillors have refused up to 180 homes on farmland at Great Glen, voting against their own officers’ recommendation to approve.

The decision was taken by seven votes to one on Monday 15 September, on a motion by Councillor Robin Hollick seconded by Councillor Jonny Austin. It is recorded in the council’s own decision list for the meeting.

That meeting was the tail end of a long night. The planning committee sat on Tuesday 8 September, ran out of time under the three hour rule in the council’s constitution, and adjourned the last two items to 15 September.

Across the two sittings the committee decided six applications and refused three of them.

What the committee decided

• 25/01564/OUT, land south of London Road, Great Glen, up to 180 homes: refused, 7 votes to 1
• 25/01587/OUT, land south of Uppingham Road, Bushby, up to 900 homes: members confirmed they would have refused it, 9 votes to 0
• 25/01567/FUL, Kibworth Working Men’s Club, 47 Fleckney Road, conversion to nine homes: refused, 9 votes to 0
• 25/00291/VAC, land at Uppingham Road, Billesdon: approved, 8 votes to 1
• 26/00581/FUL, Harborough Depot, Welham Lane, Great Bowden, the council’s own depot rebuild: approved, 9 votes to 0
• 26/00925/REM, land at Mere Lane, Magna Park, Bittesby: approved, 8 votes to 0

The Great Glen decision

The application was from DWH East Midlands, trading as David Wilson Homes. It covered 20.29 hectares of open countryside south of London Road and north of the A6, with only the new access off London Road to be settled at this stage. Officers recommended approval despite 199 letters of objection, as we reported on 5 September.

Seven people spoke on the item, including Great Glen Parish Council and two ward members.

The council’s decision list records the vote but not the committee’s reasons. Those will appear in the minutes, which are normally published with the agenda for the next planning committee. The applicant has the usual right to appeal to the Planning Inspectorate.

The late papers show how contested the transport evidence had become. Leicester Grammar School, which sits on London Road, told the council on 4 September that the applicant’s transport assessment “does not provide the evidence necessary to demonstrate that pupil safety can be protected”. The school said its own records put 1,106 vehicle movements at its gates between 07:45 and 08:45, and that the developer’s 2025 traffic surveys were run in the last week of the summer term, when roughly 250 pupils were absent. Those points are in the committee’s supplementary information paper.

Bushby is not over, and there is a deadline

The Bushby vote works differently, and the difference matters.

The applicant, Mulberry Strategic Land Ltd, did not wait for a decision. It lodged an appeal against non-determination with the Planning Inspectorate on 17 July 2026, which takes the 900 home scheme out of the council’s hands. The committee was asked only to confirm what it would have done. It did, unanimously.

The officer report recommends a single ground of refusal for the council to argue at the inquiry:

The applicant has failed to demonstrate that any significant impacts of the development on the transport network (in terms of capacity and congestion), and on highway safety, can be mitigated, contrary to Policy TR6 of the National Planning Policy Framework (2026).

Members also gave the Director of Planning delegated authority to keep that ground under review as the appeal runs.

The site is about 64.71 hectares of farmland in Thurnby parish, south-east of Bushby and around seven kilometres from Leicester city centre. It is roughly eleven miles north-west of Market Harborough. The scheme includes a primary school, a local centre and open space alongside the 900 homes.

The Inspectorate’s timetable, set out in the officer report, is:

• 29 September 2026: final date for comments from interested parties, and for the council’s statement
• 23 October 2026: case management conference
• 2 February 2027: proofs of evidence due
• 3 March 2027: inquiry opens, expected to run about six days

Two petitions were handed in before the committee. One carried 256 signatures from Thurnby, Bushby and the immediate area. A second carried 1,023 names, of which the council recorded 33 with addresses in Harborough district, 406 from the wider Leicester and Leicestershire area and 33 from outside the UK.

Why officers keep recommending approval

Harborough District Council cannot show it has enough land for the houses the government says it needs, and that shapes almost every major housing decision here.

The Bushby report sets out the position. The council’s published housing land supply, covering 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2030, is 3.1 years against a five year requirement. Its assessed housing need rose from 510 homes a year under the old standard method to 735 a year, plus a 5% buffer, which the report rounds to 771 a year.

Because the supply is short, the council’s housing policies are out of date and officers apply what planners call the tilted balance. The August 2026 National Planning Policy Framework made that tilt stronger: permission should be granted unless the harms would substantially outweigh the benefits, where the 2024 version said “significantly and demonstrably”.

That is the backdrop to two refusals in one week against officer advice.

What it means for you

• If you live in Great Glen, the 180 home scheme is refused but not finished. A separate outline application for up to 450 homes across London Road, 25/01467/OUT, is still live, and objectors have been arguing that the two should be judged together.
• If you live in or near Bushby or Thurnby, Monday 29 September is the last day the Planning Inspectorate will accept comments from interested parties on the 900 home appeal. Comments go to the Inspectorate, not the council, through the Appeals Casework Portal.
• If you live in Kibworth Beauchamp, the conversion of the disused working men’s club on Fleckney Road to nine homes has been refused, after three objectors and two ward members spoke against it. Officers had recommended approval. The application had been called in to committee by Councillor Phil King.
• Committee minutes and future agendas are published on the council’s meetings pages. We track district decisions on our Market Harborough planning news page.

Sources: Harborough District Council planning committee decision list for 8 and 15 September 2026; committee report and supplementary information for 25/01587/OUT and 25/01564/OUT; National Planning Policy Framework.