Monthly News from Neil O’Brien MP

April 2025

Hello,

Welcome to the April edition of my e-newsletter.

Kemi Badenoch visits Wigston

Last week Conservative Party Leader Kemi Badenoch visited Wigston to campaign for Liz Darling, who is standing in East Wigston in the upcoming County Council elections. We spoke to several residents who were very surprised and pleased to see Kemi on their doorstep. We had a lot of comments about the plans to expand the boundary of the City of Leicester which I am fighting against.

I have set up a petition for people to sign opposing these plans. We are closing in on 7,000 signatures, so do add yours if you have not done so already. The link is here.

Stop the New Town Public Meeting

It was good to speak at the public meeting about the proposed New Town at Stretton Hall recently. Several things have increased uncertainty and made it more important that residents put their comments in by 6 May:

• The Labour government has increased Harborough's housing target by 42% and doubled the target for Oadby and Wigston - while cutting it for cities like Leicester and London. This unfair change has pushed the district into the "presumption in favour of development", a form of special measures which means a near free-for-all for developers. For Harborough it means several years of free for all, and for Oadby and Wigston it could be even worse, as they have to go right back to the start of the plan-making process. Speculative applications are already coming in and it is unclear what this means for Harborough's proposed local plan.

• The County Council has declared the District's plans are "unsound" and "premature", particularly because they propose to load so much more development and traffic onto clogged arteries like the A6. It is not clear how this dispute will play out. The council would have to convince the planning inspectors the new town is viable which may be tricky.

• The government wants to abolish all district and borough councils, including Harborough and Oadby and Wigston. But it is unclear how fast this will happen or even if it will happen in this Parliament. As part of this reorganisation the Mayor of Leicester has proposed to government that Leicester should take over surrounding areas like Oadby Wigston and Great Glen, which I am opposing.

• The proposed new town - phase one of which is 4,000 homes - raises massive issues about both transport and flooding for existing residents nearby.

  
  

Henri, who organised the meeting, is circulating details about how people can make an impactful submission to the council's consultation. Please do have your say.

Update: Meeting at Wigston Meadows

Last month, you may recall that I had a meeting with residents of the new estate in Wigston Meadows, to talk about some of the problems caused by the developers.

Last week I held a follow-up meeting with residents and the developers to address some of these concerns. We talked about flooding, unfinished roads, and the playgrounds that had not been completed.

The developers have promised to tackle these issues and have promised further work in the coming months. All in all it sounds like there will be progress - fingers crossed. Please do email if you have specific issues.

Speaking to Year 6 pupils at Brookside Primary School

I was very impressed with the questions and knowledge coming from the pupils in Year 6 at Brookside Primary School in Oadby recently. Some really interesting questions were asked and throughout the session there were always plenty of hands up.

Thanks also to the teachers and staff for putting on such a great event.

Meeting with the Rail Minister

I met with the Rail Minister to chase on progress with the new electric trains. They should be rolling out from Autumn - about one a week, so it will take about six months. After the coming weekend closures to May there shouldn't be any more closures this year. I have seen some of these trains being tested and they will be a huge improvement on what we have currently.

We also talked about timings, and I pressed him on sorting out the wasteland around Market Harborough station.

Keep in touch

As ever, you can follow the work I am doing on my Facebook page.  Please do consider forwarding this to anyone living locally, and if I can be of any help, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me.

With best wishes,

Neil O’Brien

Member of Parliament for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston