I have lived in Allestree, Derby for most of my life. I grew up there and moved back with my family last year. It’s a great place to live in Derby, with great amenity facilities and easy access to the City and Countryside.

Demand for housing in Allestree seems very high at present. Homes are selling incredibly fast and values are pretty healthy. Family housing seems to sell well, probably due to the excellent schools.

Last week I learnt of a proposal to develop 400 new homes on the western edge of Allestree on open land, bounded by Kedleston Road. This is between Allestree Lane (the Markeaton pub) and Askerfield Avenue (before the split between Allestree and Quarndon).

Catesby Property Group are undertaking a pre-application public consultation to inform and assess local reaction to the idea. A website has been set up which provides some information about the proposal. This can be seen by clicking here. There is also a public exhibition being held this THURSDAY 10TH JULY.  This will be between 2pm-8pm at the Royal British Legion, 39 Cornill, Allestree, DE22 2FS,

I’m sure there will be some resistance to this idea. However its important to consider this in some form of logical context.

Allestree has around 13,000 residents at present so an increase of 400 homes might increase that number by circa 10%. Allestree covers a total area of around 300 hectares. The proposed site area is around 18 hectares, so a 6% increase in land area would be developed.

Allestree is heavily constrained in terms of zones for any meaningful growth. The southern and Eastern edges are bounded by Markeaton Park, The University of Derby and the A38 dual carriageway. The northern edge is largely bounded by Allestree Park and an important greenbelt strip dividing Allestree and Quarndon. The northern boundary of Allestree is also the divide between Derby City and Amber Valley Local Authorities.

Any suggestion that this scheme would negatively impact upon the Kedleston Estate are pretty tenuous in my view. The Hall is not visible from the site and in fact the sites visibility is pretty minimal generally. However its interesting to see that the Kedleston Road boundary hedges have been left to grow to some height in the last year, whereas historically they have been cut quite low.

A strong and negative precedent to enable this development has been set by the poor Planning control of the large mansion houses which have been built on Somme Road.

At this early stage I am open-minded to considering this idea. This potential development is of a fairly large scale and will have an impact on Allestree, but provided the infrastructure can support this growth (roads, schools etc), then I can see how it might work.