Quite a lot has happened since the last edition of the Chronicle. Most importantly, we delivered 2534 individual objection forms to the Harborough District Council, each one objecting to the proposal to build 550 houses in Kibworth Harcourt and Kibworth Beauchamp. These forms were delivered by Keep Kibworth Rural on board a carriage pulled by four horses which travelled from Kibworth to Market Harborough on 3 August.There can be no doubt as to how the villagers feel about the Local Plan.

The other event that you will have read about in the local press was the merging of our two councillors with the Liberal Democrat group. This was a step forward for Keep Kibworth Rural, but the move has been questioned by some villagers. I would therefore like to explain to you all the reasons for the decision and the role Keep Kibworth Rural has played in its making.

Firstly, Keep Kibworth Rural exists only because the vast majority of villagers want to stop the houses from being built or reduce the numbers considerably. That is, and always has been, our only goal. To add weight to our cause, we needed a voice in the District Council chamber, especially at the planning meetings, so we decided to put up two candidates whose main concern was to have the Local Plan ammended, but who would also represent the villages on all local issues. We struggled to find two such people, but eventually (and after a lot of persuading) we put forward Mike Bladon and Peter Burfoot to stand for Keep Kibworth Rural. The result of the election is now history and proved to us that politics took a back seat when important local issues were at stake.

However, it seemed that two voices on a council of 37 were not enough to ensure a major change to the Local Plan. It was at this point that the Liberal Democrats offered to support Keep Kibworth Rural in our attempts to review the Plan. Councillors Bladon and Burfoot put the proposal to the committee of Keep Kibworth Rural and we decided that they must do what was necessary to give us the most chance of success. After all, this is the only reason Keep Kibworth Rural exists. So our Councillors are now part of the Liberal Democrat group (and the largest group on the Council) because they feel that this is the best way to ensure successful changes to the Local Plan for Kibworth.

The individuals on the Keep Kibworth Rural committee have differing political views - there are supporters of all three major parties. Peter Burfoot and Mike Bladon are now in with a good chance of achieving this - let's give them our full support and judge them by the final results.

© Dave Johnson, Chairman KKR, 1995

Any comments or question please e-mail us @

stephen.poyzer@which.net or jemeny@globalnet.co.uk

 © Kibworth & District Chronicle 1998