5.11.1 The village of Ingham has a population of 444 (ONS 2018 mid-year estimate). Ingham is eight kilometres north of Bury St Edmunds and 19 kilometres south of Brandon. The village lacks a primary school but its facilities include a public house and post office and stores. The role of the town of Thetford is also recognised in terms of the services and facilities it provides for residents of Ingham and other villages in the northern part of the district.

5.11.2 Residential development in Ingham is centred around three roads, The Street, Culford Road and Beaufort Road. There are County Council designated archaeological sites in Ingham and a special landscape area covering a substantial area to the east of the village. The busy A134 that cuts through the village is a risk in terms of highway safety and additional accesses on to it will need careful consideration.

Constraints and opportunities

• There is one area designated as recreational open space which is located to the rear of St Bartholomew’s Church.
• A special landscape area covers a substantial area of land to the east of Ingham, which stretches across to Great Livermere.
• Ingham does not have a conservation area. It does have a cluster of listed buildings located south of the settlement boundary. Development in the vicinity would need to have regard to the historic assets.
• The surrounding landscape of Ingham is relatively flat and the effect of new development on the landscape should be minimal.
• Ingham lies on the line of a Roman road, and the historic settlement core centres around the church. There are multiperiod sites, recorded in the county Historic Environment Record (HER), to the south of the village. There are two large county council designated archaeological sites, both lie south-east of The Street.
• There are no flood zones within the vicinity of Ingham.
• The A134 to Bury St Edmunds and Thetford cuts through the village which is beneficial in terms of transport links but not in terms of highway safety. Any new development will need to have regard to an increase in traffic which may be turning on to this busy road; junction upgrades may be necessary.
• There are good travel to and from work bus links to Bury St Edmunds from Ingham.

Settlement status

5.11.3 Ingham is designated as a local service centre in the current local plan in recognition of the role it has to play in serving the residents of the village and those who live in the surrounding rural area. It is proposed to redesignate Ingham as a Type A village in the new West Suffolk settlement hierarchy, in recognition that the village lacks the level of services and facilities required to justify maintaining it as a local service centre. This would mean that the opportunity for allocating small sites in or adjacent to the village could be explored through the preparation of the local plan.

5.11.4 The former St Edmundsbury area Rural Vision 2031 (2014) allocated one site in the village. An application for 19 dwellings was approved in 2016 and the site has been completed.

Site options

5.11.5 The level of development will be influenced by the settlement strategy which will determine the distribution of development across the district as well as the existing environmental and physical constraints and the overall capacity for growth in the settlement.

5.11.6 A number of sites have been submitted to the council by landowners and developers for potential inclusion in the local plan. Included sites in the Strategic Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment (SHELAA) that lie within or adjacent to the settlement boundary are shown on the map below, as these have passed the initial tests of being suitable, available and achievable, and so are more likely to be sites that could be suitable for allocation in the local plan.

5.11.7 It is important to note that at this stage these sites have not been selected as preferred sites for development, but we are seeking views on them to assist with the preparation of the next draft of the plan, where decisions will be made on which, if any, sites would be suitable for allocation.

5.11.8 The table below provides information on these sites, setting out information on the proposed use and planning status. Also below is a map of the main settlement constraints to assist you in making a response.

5.11.9 Your comments on these sites will help in drawing up the next draft of the West Suffolk Local Plan for consultation in 2021. This will set out the council’s preferred options for the distribution of housing and other land uses across the district. The council will also consult on the preferred sites across the district to achieve this distribution.

Ingham settlement constraints map

Ingham settlement map showing included SHELAA sites

Ingham - included SHELAA sites