CONSERVATION AREA CHARACTER APPRAISAL Loughborough Shelthorpe Conservation Area CHARACTER APPRAISAL Adopted December 2006 SHELTHORPE CONSERVATION AREA CHARACTER APPRAISAL CONTENTS 03 INTRODUCTION Summary Planning Policies 05 MAPS Current map Map of 1915 07 LOCATION AND SETTING General character and Plan Form Origins and Development 16 MATERIALS AND DETAILS The Housing Estate Shelthorpe School and the Public House Local Details Trees, Hedges and Green Spaces Biodiversity Views 22 NEGATIVE FACTORS Street Furniture Car Ownership The Charnwood Club Playground Enclaves 24 MANAGEMENT PROPOSALS Environmental Improvement & Car Parking, Playground Enclaves, Boundary, Charnwood Club Summary of Proposals 26 GUIDELINES Alterations and New Development 27 BIBLIOGRAPHY SHELTHORPE CONSERVATION AREA CHARACTER APPRAISAL INTRODUCTION SUMMARY Shelthorpe housing estate was designated as a There is unlikely to be any archeological interest in the Conservation Area in 1976 and covers an area of about Area. 16 ha. In outline the Area has altered little since its building. The estate was started by the Loughborough Corporation Some of the details which contribute to the character in 1926, and was developed on the principles laid down by have changed: most of the original windows have been the Tudor Walters Report of 1918, which was influenced replaced; and the growth of car ownership has created by the Garden City movement and Arts & Crafts housing many problems, such as the removal of boundary privet design. Pevsner in 1960 noted that the estate was designed hedges and the need to find parking places. The building by Barry Parker of Letchworth and Hampstead Garden of the Epinal Way extension has radically reduced the Suburb fame and is … red brick, nicely designed and amount of traffic on Shelthorpe Road. grouped in twos and fours. The centre is a Circus, where the houses are singled out by slate-hung oriels. Originally all the land was owned by the Borough Council but more than half the houses have been transferred to the private ownership of the occupiers. SHELTHORPE CONSERVATION AREA CHARACTER APPRAISAL PLANNING POLICIES A conservation area is an area of special architectural or compensate for harm but also seek ways to enhance, historic interest whose character or appearance should restore and add to biodiversity and geodiversity. be preserved or enhanced. In making decisions on potential development within a conservation area, the The Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland Structure Council is required to ‘pay attention to the desirability Plan 1996 to 2016, published in December 2004, seeks of preserving or enhancing the character or appearance to identify, protect, preserve and enhance areas, sites, of the area’. Permission will not be granted for proposals buildings and settings of historic or architectural interest that are likely to harm the character or appearance of a or archaeological importance. Development within conservation area. conservation areas should preserve or enhance their character and appearance. Environment Policy 2: Sites and Sections 69 and 72 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Buildings of Historic Architectural and Archaeological Conservation Areas) Act 1990. Planning Policy Guidance Interest. Note 15: Planning and the Historic Environment says that special attention should be paid when considering The Borough of Charnwood Local Plan 1991 – 2006 proposals for development in a conservation area. adopted in January 2004 seeks to ensure that new development in conservation areas preserves or enhances The Regional Spatial Strategy for the East Midlands the character and appearance of the area. Policy EV/10. published in March 2005 advises local authorities to develop strategies that avoid damage to the region’s Leading in Design SPD aims to ensure effective approaches cultural assets. Policy 26: Protecting and Enhancing The to securing good design. It provides a set of principles to Region’s Natural and Cultural Assets. inform development. Other relevant SPDs are Backland and Tandem Development, House Extensions, Shopfronts Planning Policy Statement 9: Requires that planning and Signs and Student Housing. policies and decisions not only avoid, mitigate or SHELTHORPE CONSERVATION AREA CHARACTER APPRAISAL This material has been reproduced from Ordnance Survey digital mapping with the permission of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Crown copyright. Licence No 100023558 Shelthorpe Conservation Area as it is today SHELTHORPE CONSERVATION AREA CHARACTER APPRAISAL Shelthorpe Farm in 1915, shortly before the building of Shelthorpe estate SHELTHORPE CONSERVATION AREA CHARACTER APPRAISAL LOCATION AND SETTING Shelthorpe is on the south side of Loughborough 1 mile from the town centre. The Conservation Area covers the part of the wider Shelthorpe estate between Leicester Road and Ling Road. The estate is based on a single design and layout which was and, to a large degree, still is visually distinctive. GENERAL CHARACTER AND PLAN FORM The estate was developed as a residential area on open fields attached to Shelthorpe Farm on the edge of the flat plain of the Soar valley. It is built around two principal roads, Shelthorpe Road and Woodthorpe Road, which are wide streets with grass verges, joined by a narrow link road, Shelthorpe Avenue. Leading off these roads are a series of narrow culs-de-sac that penetrate into the land behind the principal road frontages and provide intimate clusters of housing in contrast to the more open, linear form of housing along the principal roads. As the Area was planned and developed as a single estate there is a broad uniformity in the style and appearance of the houses which are two storey, built of similar materials and mostly arranged in terraces of four or as semi- detached properties. Two non-residential buildings, Shelthorpe School and the Bull’s Head public house, now the MacDonald’s restaurant, were built as part of the original development. SHELTHORPE CONSERVATION AREA CHARACTER APPRAISAL ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT The origins of the present built development in the and Town Planning Act of 1919 which placed obligations exterior decoration. They were to be built in groups of Conservation Area are firmly rooted in the expansion on local authorities to provide houses to meet the needs four or six, set amongst gardens and trees and laid out of Loughborough during the 1920s and 1930s into its of local people. The Government subsidised a programme in culs-de-sac which were very much favoured by the surrounding countryside. to promote the building of new municipal housing. Garden City movement as they allowed the picturesque grouping of houses and reduced the infrastructure costs The estate takes its name from the medieval village of The standards for the new housing were largely determined associated with roads, allowing savings to be redirected Shelthorpe that originally stood between Leicester Road by the recommendations of the Tudor Walters Report of into providing a better quality of dwelling. and the River Soar. The village was deserted in the Middle 1918 much of which had been drafted by Raymond Unwin Ages and its buildings removed but following the 1762 who was a key advocate of the Garden City movement The construction of Shelthorpe is an important example of Enclosure Awards a number of farms were set up on the and, up to 1914, a partner of Barry Parker who was the Garden City style of municipal housing that was built open field system that was attached to the village. The subsequently engaged to design the Shelthorpe estate. during this period to satisfy local housing shortages. Conservation Area now occupies the land associated with The Report proposed standards and densities for the new Shelthorpe Farm which stood near the site of the present housing based on those of the Garden City recommending By 1925 Loughborough Corporation had purchased the school. a standard housing type of spacious two-storey dwellings Shelthorpe Farm estate and had made plans to provide with at least three bedrooms and a ‘through’ living a new highway link between Leicester Road and Park In response to national housing shortages following the room to allow maximum natural light and ventilation. Road. At about the same time a new housing scheme was First World War, the Government introduced the Housing The houses had medium or low-pitched roofs and little promoted by the Chairman of the Health and Planning SHELTHORPE CONSERVATION AREA CHARACTER APPRAISAL Committee, Councillor Alan Moss, who engaged Barry completed and 88 were underway. The Echo in December Parker in May 1926 to prepare the plans for the Shelthorpe 1926 noted: scheme. Parker was then involved in the development of … where at one time were hedges, fields and ploughed the estate until January 1941. Up to 1914 Barry Parker land, a miniature suburbia is now springing up … had worked in partnership with Raymond Unwin as architect and planner respectively. As major advocates The houses for Shelthorpe used a basic design that had of the Garden City movement they established a national been established at New Earswick but was adapted reputation for designing new housing schemes which to suit the local aspect and to promote the picturesque incorporated careful groupings of dwellings in well-treed character of the estate. The overall style reflected the neo- and landscaped settings using small crescents and culs-de- vernacular cottages popularised by the Arts and Crafts sac to achieve high standards of amenity and picturesque movement. The houses