Garendon Park, Loughborough - Public Access Developments

 I’m publishing this post to provide interested users with a link to my website’s Garendon page, where you’ll find some useful information on public access to the Garendon Park development. Just follow the link. Herewith also 

some recent developments.....

Update 9.10.26:  Persimmon's failure to honour their commitments under the S106 Planning agreement is now becoming something of a joke..and an annoying one at that. 

Despite promises from the developer relayed by Leics. Highways in June that the Link between Hathern Drive and the main estate road at the Bavarian Gate would be opened 'by the end of this summer', nothing has happened, despite the fact that the cabling work that was reputed to be the only cause of the delay is now appears complete. By contrast, housebuilding on the northern side of the estate is proceeding rapidly and the distributor road which is intended to serve it looks to be largely complete between the A512 and the NCR6 crossing. An inspection yesterday from Coach Rd to the East of the new road confirms the satellite imagery such that all that would be necessary to allow free passge would be removal of the barriers on either side of the road and the padlock on the M1 tunnel gate. Despite this, there is no sign of the promised re-opening.

It all goes to show that developers are only interested in one thing - building their houses as quickly as possible - and selling them at maximum profit. Developing country parks for the benefit of the local residents is regarded as an unncessary burden, to be minimised and offloaded wherever possible.

In short, I have to admit that I'll believe any restutution of our access rights under S106 when I see it. 

Another 'grapevine item' that recently came my way was that a buyer was found for the Bavarian Arch last month, but the deal fell through when they found out that a public footpath was to pass directly in front of their kitchen window! Apart from its humorous side, this does indicate a recognition on Persimmon's part that they must open the route at some stage or face sanctions. It also suggests that a new owner wouldn't be able to physically block the route to deny access (not legally at any rate). Watch this space.....

Update 1.1.26: The closure of NCR6 (Alias FP K68) started in mid October with a small diversion near the proposed crossing point for the new distributor road. This was followed in early November by the closure of the section of NCR6 beyond its junction with Hathern Lane. C3C, Persimmon's sub-contractor for the cabling work involved, are performing the work in 2 phases - the first being the section between Hathern Lane and Stonebow Walk, and the second between there and the Coe Avenue entrance (see attached plan). LCC Highways originally indicated that the project was due to complete by 26.1.26, but have now revised this to 15.2.26. More revisions to come, no doubt - read on to find out why...

What progress has been made ?

An inspection on 31st December revealed that Phase 1 was well underway, but the section between the Red Arch and the Hathern Lane junction was still being worked on. I estimated at the time that a further month's work at least would be necessary before this section was completed and Phase 1 came to an end. Since Phase 2 had not yet started (the Coe Avenue to the Stonebow Walk turn section was still open to pedestrians, and had been throughout Phase 1), this more or less guaranteed a substantial schedule overrun, assuming cabling will involve the whole length of this section. Based on the limited progress so far, I would estimate the project would not be complete until early to mid-April, with the long diversionary route via Pear Tree Lane in force for much of that time.

NB The quality of the surface along most of the routes inspected was atrocious. The combination of the recent heavy rains and continuous works traffic has effecively turned long sections of the route into quagmires. The route is certainly not suitable for cycles, and barely so for pedestrians. Given this is a designated PROW, the landowner has a responsibility to ensure the route is in a fit state for the public to exercise their rights. This is arguably not the case at present....

You'll find more detail of the history of the Garendon development on my website. You'll also find some information on plans for future development as far as we know them - follow the link below or more details and a status report for the recommended diversionary route. 

NCR6 is an established PROW, and is the only remaining traffic-free route between Shepshed and Loughborough for cyclists and pedestrians. Closing it for this length of time has inconvenienced both pedestrians and cyclists; there is no viable alternative cycle-friendly route, since the Coach Road from Shepshed is also closed and isn't scheduled to reopen again until April 2026. There will no doubt be schedule overruns there also, since works are still very much ongoing in the area where the new road crosses Coach Road. The closures have also restricted access to the established FPs in the southern part of the estate, and will do so more extensively still, once access is blocked from Coe Avenue (likely from early February to mid-April).

For full details of the recent history of footpath availability and available knowledge of the developers' plans for the estate, see the website's Garendon page. 

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I’m publishing this post to provide interested users with a link to my website’s Garendon page, where you’ll find some useful information on public access to the Garendon Park development. Just follow the link.

Amongst other things on the website page, you’ll find a detailed description of which footpaths are currently accessible, as well as some history of the development and what is planned for public amenties there. 

I’ll aim to provide regular updates over the next few months as the developers progress the construction of the new road, since this is likely to have a significant effect on public access. The plan shown below (Fig. 1) was published at the start of the development project by Persimmon, and indicates the intended layout of the Park after development is complete.

Feel free to have a look round the rest of the website while you're there - there's plenty of interest to look at, and a lot of useful stuff available to download as well...

Why have I bothered to posted this 'taster' on Blogger, you may ask ? The answer is - Indexing…

For some reason, the 'Indexbots', those tireless little digital robots which endelssly trawl the net for new website content to index,  seem to be particularly drawn to Blogspot posts. These appear quite consistently to get  indexed virtually overnight; conventional websites can take much longer to update. 

Unfortunately none of this applies to 'Googlebots', which seem to studiously ignore all of Google's own products (e.g. Blogspot and Google Sites).  I've no idea why this is; given that it means that anyone who uses Google as their principal search engine (i.e. most of the online human population!) will actually be missing out on a substantial amount of new content, it seems a rather strange business model to adopt.....why not 'vote with your mouse', as I've done, and use one of the others such as Microsoft's Bing, or DuckDuckGo, which offers private searches...Yu could even choose a combi-search product. That way you'll be sure of not missing anything novel that Google hasn't yet caught up with...or just thinks is beneath its notice !

For anyone with a Google sites website/blog, or contemplating setting one up, it’s well worth noting this discrepancy for future reference…but don't expect to fathom the nature of the Google indexing system - many have tried and failed in the past...including, I suspect, Google employees themselves (Does anyone really understand it ?)

First published 15.6.25

Revised 1.1.26

Figure 1: Garendon Park & Estate: Facilities Plan (Wm Davis/Persimmon 2015)