Plan for 26 homes on Glen Parva former landfill site

Plans for 26 homes on Leicestershire former landfill site submitted

A plan for 26 homes on a former landfill site in Leicestershire is being considered by Blaby District Council. If approved, the houses will form part of a larger development, by Glen Parva JV LLP, for land off Cork Lane, in Glen Parva.

The area is currently a meadow but it used to be home to clay pits linked to local brickworks which were then later filled with waste material. Last year, a planning application for 165 homes on the site was won on appeal, after initially being rejected in 2019 by Blaby District Council over gas fears.

However, for the plan to proceed, a gas risk mitigation plan for the area also had to be submitted and approved by the authority. This happened last month, meaning work on the site can now go ahead.

Phase one of the scheme will see the majority of the housing built. The application currently under consideration is for the final 26 homes that form phase two.

Because the site is known to be contaminated due to its previous use as a landfill, the project is considered to be “particularly vulnerable”. The full set of contamination assessments and site investigations completed over several phases from 2013 to 2022 have been included with the plans and Environmental Protection Group Limited, working on behalf of the applicant, said in its report in May 2022 the site “can be safely developed” and proposed mitigation measures “are appropriate”.

Suggested mitigation includes the use of porous materials and air bricks. The contamination report added the ground conditions at the site are similar to those at many other housing developments across the country.

If approved, 19 of the 26 homes in this phase would be made up of two two-bedroom, thirteen three-bedroom, and four four-bedroom properties. The other seven properties would be “affordable” homes made up of two two-bedroom, and five three-bedroom properties.

Plans also show there will be new roads built as part of the development and an additional 54 parking spaces created. Phase two will sit towards the south of the recently approved phase one development, allowing for car and pedestrian access to connect back to the Cork Lane junction.

Ultimately, the full 165-home development will cover 10.8 hectares. It will also include landscaping and open space.

Steve Wilson, a landfill gas expert who spoke on behalf of the applicant when the gas mitigation was being considered by the local authority last month, said it was not appropriate to compare this site with Huncote Leisure Centre in the district. The leisure centre was closed in November 2021 after elevated and dangerous levels of methane were detected around the centre. It has since reopened, but issues associated with the problem are ongoing.

Mr Wilson said: “The proposed development at Glen Parva is located on an old landfill site and there is landfill gas present in the site and it’s an important consideration for a development. But that is not unusual.

“There are hundreds if not thousands of similar sites where houses have been built over ground where gas is present. There are now well established and routine procedures for investigating, assessing and managing the risk to buildings from gas in the ground, both on the development and outside the development in the surrounding area.”