Agenda item

The Chief Executive reported that five questions had been received under Standing Order 32.

 

Questions asked by Mr. Stephen Walkley

“The Council has spent £39.4m on Lutterworth East (FOI response 16 October 2025 -EIR/009476). 

 

(1)  Has the council an estimate of the additional infrastructure costs of the development to the Council? If so what are they?

(2)  When does the Council expect work commence on the development?

(3)  Is Lutterworth East considered to be a viable development?

(4)  Is it still the intention to build a spine road for Lutterworth East, rather than the urgently needed North  / South bypass for Lutterworth?   If so when is construction expected to start?

(5)  At the Harborough District Council Planning meeting the representative of the County Council accepted that as the affordable housing percentage had reduced from 40% to 10% the houses that would be built would be larger and therefore there would be room for fewer than the original plan of 2,750 houses. How many do the Council now expect to be built in Lutterworth East?”

 

Reply by the Chair

 

“(1)     Lutterworth East has been granted planning consent for a development scheme which includes substantial infrastructure works. These include on site infrastructure including widening of the A4304 to allow for access to the Site and accommodate traffic, the provision of a spine road and bridge of the M1 to the A426 for the benefit of the development and the wider area, community and social facilities including primary schools, sports pitches and public open space. Offsite infrastructure requirements include improvements to M1 J20 and M1 J21, the Frank Whittle roundabout, A5/Gibbet Lane roundabout, public transport improvements, connections into Lutterworth town centre, secondary education, GP, police, waste and library contributions.

 

The Council are currently looking at options for the delivery of the development which will be delivered in phases and by development partners who will build and finance the infrastructure works. The majority of works are expected to be paid for by developers rather than the County Council.

(2)             Work is happening to progress the development, for example ground surveys and obtaining the necessary planning documents in relation to the conditions forming part of the planning consent. The design of the initial road works is currently being undertaken. The technical approval and traffic management plus procurement of the contractor will be undertaken through the summer and a start on site is expected during the summer and autumn of 2026 for initial access works. Preparatory work is expected to commence in the Spring.

(3)             The original planning consent from May 2022 included a requirement of 40% affordable housing and a condition restricting the size of any building on the B8 (warehousing/distribution) site of the development to 9,000sqm. Following the covid pandemic and rising construction costs these requirements were making the scheme unviable and unattractive to developers. The Council succeeded in obtaining a variation to the planning consent at the HDC planning committee in December 2024 to bring the level of affordable housing down to a minimum of 10% and allow for larger warehouse units to be built on the B8 site with the restriction being removed from the planning consent.

 

The variation was granted following the provision of an independent assessment of viability, this also showed that the scheme could be viable with the requested changes.
 

As with all large scale developments viability is assessed at key decision points. If viability of the scheme improves the level of affordable homes would increase accordingly.

(4)             Yes – planning permission was granted for a spine road as part of the development. This will be constructed as the various phases of the development move forward. There is a planning requirement to complete the spine road between the A426 and A4304 prior to the occupation of the 650th dwelling or a vehicular connection is available for public use onto Gilmorton Road whichever is the sooner. The initial construction phase is likely to be linked to the construction of the B8 site.

(5)             The number of homes remains at 2,750 houses in line with the original hybrid planning consent, despite changes to the affordable housing percentage.

 

Affordable housing refers to price and tenure, not physical size. Therefore, reducing the proportion of affordable housing does not necessarily mean that the remaining homes will be larger, nor that fewer homes will be built overall.

 

Affordable housing is defined as social rented, affordable rented and intermediate housing, provided to eligible households whose needs are not met by the market. Eligibility is determined with regard to local incomes and local house prices.

 

It should include provisions for the development to remain at an affordable price in perpetuity for future eligible households or, where any affordable housing development is subsequently sold on the open market for the value to be recycled for replacement affordable housing provision in the locality.

 

Affordable housing will be provided based on the policies in the Harborough District Council’s Local Plan; the National Planning Policy Framework and the Section 106 Agreement for the development

 

Whilst the minimum level of affordable housing has been reduced from 40% to 10% to make the development viable, four viability re-assessments will take place at key stages of the development to review whether there can an increase in the affordable housing provision or not.”

 

With the consent of the Chairman, Mr Walkley advised that he had four supplementary questions.

 

Mr Walkley asked on the response to his question (1) if the Council had an estimate of the costs to the Council for the Lutterworth East scheme? £39.4m had already been spent on the scheme, and just to say 50% of the works were expected to be paid by developers would still leave the Council committed to significant expenditure.   

 

At the request of the Chairman, the Director of Corporate Resources responded to advise that the vast majority (not just 50%) of costs would be met by the developers.  However, by way of an estimate, on a scheme of this scale, the infrastructure to be provided covering roads, education and other elements could be in the region of £150m.  The final amount would, however, depend on the approach taken to build that infrastructure and the timing of construction.

 

On the response to question (2) Mr Walkley asked, as the Council only had outline planning permission for the scheme, how works could commence without detailed planning permission having been obtained?  The Director responded that the works related to initial road access as agreed with Harborough District Council as part of the implementation of the planning permission.

 

Regarding the responses provided to question (3), Mr Walkley asked when the last assessment of viability had been carried out and when it was expected that the next key decision point be and at which time a new viability assessment would be needed? 

 

At the request of the Chairman the Director advised that the last assessment had been undertaken in conjunction with Harborough District Council when changes had been made to the planning permission.  The next viability assessment would be carried out either when government funding had been secured to support the scheme or a housing developer sought to progress the first stage of the residential part of the scheme.  It was emphasised that carrying out a viability assessment was a costly and time consuming exercise and so would not be done until necessary.

 

Mr Walkley asked on the response to question (4) when it was expected that construction of the spine road would start, noting that it was stated this would be when construction of the B8 site commenced.

 

The Director responded that construction of the B8 part of the scheme would go out to an external developer and it would be up to the preferred bidder to schedule when to carry out those works, including those required to the spine road that provided access.  It was highlighted that the spine road had been appraised to be sufficient for the development as part of the planning process and that no national funding scheme to support a new bypass existed so the construction of the spine road continued to form part of the overall scheme.