Comment

East Midlands: In Focus – finding common ground in Leicestershire

The Leicestershire authorities are not hanging around. With ambitious plans for growth and an a yet unconfirmed development requirement spilling out of Leicester City, there are plenty of opportunities and challenges for Associate Director, Sam Lake, and Director, Strategic Communications, David Blackadder-Weinstein to consider.

Watch the video below for an overview of Leicestershire’s growth plans, and their strategic opportunities and challenges.

The latest Statement of Common Ground (“SoCG”) relating to housing and employment land needs in Leicestershire was published in May 2022.

It documents the latest assessed need for housing and employment land in each district / borough up to 2036 and grapples with the distribution of unmet housing and employment land need from Leicester City, equal to 18,700 homes and 23 hectares respectively – quite the shortfall.

In recent memory, under the guidance of Leader of the Council Cllr Nick Rushton, the Leicestershire authorities have been a shining example of collaboration, demonstrated by the publication of the Strategic Growth Plan and their joint commissioning of evidence on need and its distribution – all documented through various iterations of SoCGs. Other counties in both the East and West Midlands are crying out for such willing co-operation.

Just as the Strategic Growth Plan looked to be getting back on track, are the wheels about to come off again?

In September 2020, Midlands Connect, the region’s sub-national transport body, told leaders of Leicester and Leicestershire that they would no longer be pursuing central Government investment, that could have amounted to around £1 billion, for an A46 Expressway around Leicester. Although this was celebrated as a David vs Goliath win for anti-road and green campaigners at the time, it threw Cllr Rushton’s Strategic Growth Plan into disarray as so many of the promised homes and new employment land were dependent on the delivery of the new expressway.

Fast forward to May 2022, and just as the updated SoCG based on a non-expressway world looks to have been formulated, the latest evidence confirms Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council (“HBBC”) does not agree to its total share of the Leicester City housing shortfall (i.e. 187 homes per annum) just as Blaby and North West Leicestershire district councils have agreed to making significant contributions.  

Furthermore, there is still some way to go in seeking approval of the latest SoCG. Crucial evidence is outstanding on the distribution of need in strategic transport terms and against the emerging strategic growth options and constraints mapping – due for publication towards the end of this year.

The strategic challenges of Leicestershire are well known – Leicester City is constrained in land availability (but so was Birmingham, which continues to significantly grow); the A46, M69-M1 junction and A5 still pose significant traffic and transportation constraints for sustainable growth; although improvements are promised by the Midlands Rail Hub, they are still some way off and east-west rails links remain poor for the time being - although full electrification of the Midland Main Line has been promised again, a proposed high speed link from Leicester to Leeds has been dropped; and there is a severe lack of good quality community infrastructure.

This is in the face of exciting times for Leicestershire: it has excellent universities with a strong talent pool; there are flourishing high-tech and innovation businesses in the space sector; it is still seeing very strong demand for advanced logistics; and is home to a significant chunk of the only inland Freeport (East Midlands Airport)… and, it is home to the best performing Premier League side in the Midlands (all helps with place marketing!).

So how is everyone meant to find common ground to address the challenges and opportunities?

A county deal could well be the answer…

Leicestershire has been invited to negotiate a new devolution deal with central Government which, in our view, must include Leicester City and all its neighbouring districts and boroughs, including little and often forgotten Rutland. This is a sensible functional housing and economic market area bringing the whole county together.

Devolved powers could include greater authority over planning, transport systems and infrastructure projects – all of which are key to addressing challenges and unlocking strategic opportunities. This will be especially important to help Leicestershire compete for investment if a new East Midlands Combined Authority is to emerge in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire (more on that in future updates).

Ideally, greater control over planning would result in a joint county-wide plan to direct growth (including urban densification, strategic employment sites and new settlements following the success of Lubbesthorpe) and guide strategic infrastructure investment in transport, rail, and community facilities. A county-wide plan can build on the current and emerging evidence being prepared by the authorities with the Strategic Growth Plan as a starting point.

With levelling up gathering some momentum, finding common ground in Leicestershire has never been so important.

To find out more about opportunities in Leicestershire, contact Sam Lake, David Blackadder-Weinstein, Jessica Herritty or Tom Armfield.

27 May 2022