The Chairman of Wilmslow Town Council has expressed his serious concern and disappointment that the proposed changes to the local plan have not taken into account the views of Wilmslow Town Council or local residents.
The Strategic Planning Panel (SPP) of Wilmslow Town Council held a recent meeting to discuss the sites identified for new housing which were revealed last week in a report detailing the proposed changes which Cheshire East Council has put together for approval by the Strategic Planning Board, Cabinet and the Full Council this month.
Speaking about his personal point of view at the Wilmslow Town Council meeting on Monday, 15th February, Cllr Keith Purdom said "I think the feeling of the meeting and the feeling I took away was one of significant disappointment with the Local Plan. I can see no evidence of there being any impact on the Local Plan of the consultations that have taken place to date and almost the opposite in fact.
"The increase in the number of houses allocated from 400 to a minimum of 900 isn't a surprise but it is a disappointment still. Three strategic sites, strategic meaning more than 150 houses, have been identified. If you add the three together, and I'll comment individually, you'll get - give or take - 550 so my maths tells me we're just over 900 assuming that 400 is recognised is the number we've got developed in the period of the plan to date.
"Now that sounds to me like a fait accompli, it sounds like there are three sites, we're going to consult you about them but there are only three sites and they add up to the number of houses we need - so disappointment around that. There is an opportunity for Cheshire East to come back with non-strategic sites, meaning sites of a less than 150, so there could be some tunes to play around that but one doubts that's going to be in the consultation.
"The three strategic sites are Stanneylands, not a surprise but not previously in the Local Plan, so although we on the Council were well aware of it I know from Dr Stones (a local resident who had spoken earlier in the meeting) and others that not everybody who lived locally was necessarily aware of that.
"Heathfield, which to the best of my recollection, was discussed all those years ago in the Wilmslow Vision but not since, so this has appeared almost out of the blue, as has the safeguarding adjacent to the site that's in for development.
"And of course it is no surprise Royal London is in but there is a big surprise that it has gone from 75 to 200, I'm talking round figures all the time. And of course the biggest surprise there is the piece of land to the west of the road to Alderley which is also owned by Royal London, which was previously - I'm not sure personally 100% confident whether it was green belt or it was not green belt but it moved from whatever it was into something we were told was much more protected than green belt and now its designated for some 80 houses.
"So whether we might have some success in for example reducing the numbers on any of these sites and finding a non-strategic sites, or whether in fact the Council when we do deliberate on this will feel it better to go with these sites and end the conversation and not have yet more sites presented to us."
Cllr Purdom added "The safeguarding site at Chapel Lane/Upcast site is now much bigger and to my personal surprise site AA, this is the site opposite the school on the bypass - on the opposite side to the Prestbury link road - has disappeared. There did in my mind at least appear merit in identifying that as one of the strategic sites that could be developed, or could be safeguarded, but that has gone.
"We know Cheshire East have a process and methodology and they'll be able to tell us what it was but none-the-less I am still very surprised by that.
"So the SPP decided that I would draft a letter of concern and disappointment to Cheshire East. That we would report tonight they need to return to this and formulate a Wilmslow Town Council position on the subject.
Cllr Angela McPake added "From what we can see from the plan there is very little provision for some of the infrastructure that would need to support these sites which is woefully lacking."
The full report of proposed changes to the Local Plan can be dowloaded from the Cheshire East Council website. The section covering Handforth starts on page 400 and the section on Wilmslow begins on page 496.
Cheshire East Council is seeking approval of the proposed changes at a meeting of Strategic Planning Board on 18th February, a meeting of Cabinet on 23rd February and the Full Council on 26 February.
Once approved, it is proposed that the 'Cheshire East Council Proposed Changes to the Local Plan Strategy' will be subject to full public consultation for a period of six weeks from 4th March and 19th April.
Comments
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Is this figure included or excluded from the 30,000 that is the supposed number of new houses in all Cheshire East.
If not, the whole eastern part of Cheshire will be swamped with housed. Can one of our learned CE Councillors enlighten us.
Also where are the sewage treatment plants for all these extra houses. We know that the sewage farm must be overloaded, as all of Bollin Park sewage will be released near midnight, daily.
So with 2000 houses at Handforth, and maybe more at Stanneylands and Dene Road, o where will it all go?
Please enlighten me?
In the run up to the elections last May Conservative flyers told of their objection to 75 houses being proposed on Royal London. It was left to Residents of Wilmslow (RoW) canvassing for now Councillors Toni Fox and David Jefferay to inform the people the Conservatives were though in favour of offices and a hotel being built here. Keith Purdom has recently owned up to this.
A very significant piece of research WTC could have done, starting early in the process, would have been to afford a consultant to conduct their own Urban Potential Assessment, to speak with owners of brown sites in Wilmslow to ascertain the availability of their land for development. Without doubt this would have gone a long way towards saving some of the Green Belt and supported their "Brownfield First" policy.
In the final analysis it is very difficult for Conservative Councillors to stand against the party when it comes to strategic planning. However, in spending money to ensure every resident has a chance to participate in the forthcoming public consultation WTC has a real opportunity to represent their public by recommending a "No" vote to the sites Cheshire East is allocating to Wilmslow.
CEC has mysteriously, well for reasons best known to Cheshire East, chosen to increase the housing at Royal London, pulled a dead rabbit out of a hat at Stanneylands and added a site at Heathfield Farm. Incidentally, Heathfield's ownership is now a registered Guernsey company, thus any development windfall will result in a nil tax benefit, with Wilmslow's tax payers bearing the tax brunt & the social consequences of the sale & development here.
Apart from Royal London, none of these sites were included in the Wilmslow Vision document of March 2012 and so the public has not been consulted on Heathfield & Stanneylands. Only Royal London was included in the submission version of the Local Plan in March 2014. Thus, whilst the selected three sites are out for public consultation, there will be no true "consultation" as CEC has clearly chosen what it wants without regard for the town's residents views i.e. which three of these three do you want!
Royal London's farmed field west of Alderley Road was projected to come out of the Green Belt by CEC. RoW, when questioning both George Osborne MP & the then council leader Cllr Jones, about the loss of the green belt protection here, was assured by these two gentlemen that the field was to be re designated "protected open green space" - whatever this meant. When we questioned them further as to the protection here, they assured us that the new designation was far more rigorous than "mere" green belt. Oh yes? So much for our political leaders' words! What are they worth now? I suggest nothing, worthless.
Looking at the proposed "employment" land grab, the CEC LP document has increased this element requirement from 8 ha (hectares) to 10 ha. However,it completely ignores the new Waters development, opened in Sept 2014, & the development at the former Brybor Kennels of 0.6 ha, now under construction, both within the LP life span (2010 to 2030). These two sites total 15.6 ha, over 50% more land than the LP suggests is needed. Both of these are within the Green Belt.
Why have these two employment sites been brushed out of the LP and the public's view? What is CEC's questionable game? Questions to be asked of CEC's planners & leadership.
The story doesn't end there. The misrepresentation of employment sites continues -
CS26 - Royal London - council proposing additional 5 ha for new commercial development plus a hotel of unspecified area, on Green Belt
CS27 - Wilmslow Business Park (between the rail line & by-pass adjacent to RL) - council proposing 6.3 ha, on Green Belt.
The maths: 5 + 6.3 = 11.3 ha PLUS 15.6 at Waters & Brybor = 26.9 ha PLUS the hotel. This is a 170% increase in commercial development, all to
to feed some uncaring, community destroying & greedy land owners, like the above mentioned mutual. The 170% increase in commercial development will be at a destructive loss of highly valuable community Green Belt protection.
What sort of conversations has Royal London had with CEC? We know the company has threatened to throw its toys out of the pram if it couldn't get its own way, so call its bluff CEC and negotiate from there. CEC's negotiators, as Vic Barlow has rightly alluded to in his article, are woefully poor and inept. I, we, could teach them some valuable lessons but it may well be far too late, they have done the damage.
Either clearly CEC states it needs 10 ha or it wants 29.6+. If the latter, Wilmslow is well over that requirement.
So what is going on? We need to ask, we need forthright answers, before this whole area is destroyed for ever under concrete. Is this the legacy we wish to leave our children, grandchildren & beyond?
As yet CEC makes no mention of the 180,000 sq ft of empty office space in Wilmslow, plus 500,000 sq ft of empty office space in Handforth. What are our council and its officers playing at? If Royal London wishes to expand, move into the town centre and help revitalise the centre. Royal London is not averse to having multi office locations, currently starring in London, Reading, Edinburgh (2 sites), Glasgow and Wilmslow.
Do not forget we are dealing with a council that has “form” in the planning realm! Cheshire East's leadership and officers need to be asked very searching questions as to their competency, abilities and nous, indeed called to book.
How did this happen? Can it be fixed? How do we fix it? Where do we go from here?
It is almost too late in the day for WTC members to lament over the contents of the revised Local Plan ... and those who were Councillors at the time of the Wilmslow Vision & first submission of the Local Plan were led by the nose by the vested interests of the landowners, especially Royal London. Time now for our CEC Councillors to at last stand up & be counted ... speak up at the full Council Meeting next Friday and show that you do listen to your electors; not to do so will come back to haunt you!
Here we have our CEC and WTC Councillor, Mr Barton, who voted (with our other "representatives") for removing several large areas of Green Belt land from the Local Plan, yet who, when faced by an application to build houses on a miniscule piece of land, just over his back fence, moved heaven and earth to get it rejected. I congratulated him at the time on the refusal, because this development was wrong.
Since then he, and Cllr Menlove and Cllr Stockton (let's forget about Keegan, his litigational fish is still, reportedly, frying), who also voted to dump or Green Belt have been totally silent.
I look forward to reading forth-coming editions of Private Eye magazine.
They have failed to influence the big things that matter most to the town.
They are clearly not fit for purpose and are a layer of beurocracy we do not need.
Whilst RoW does not agree with WTC's acceptance of some aspects of the LPS that affect Wilmslow, we do fully appreciate that your voiced concerns are being ignored, along with many other such bodies. We fully understand that all town & parish councils are at the bottom of the "democratic" ladder and are powerless in the current LPS process.
Without doubt, the strongest voice WTC, and other similar bodies up & down England, have is to show their strongly felt opposition to the rape of our green & pleasant land by greedy developers aided and abetted by feeble borough councils and a blinkered government is to resign. Only when there is a mass resignation by Conservative town councillors will the Conservative government start to take our very real concerns and dissatisfaction with the current planning mayhem seriously.
This may be the one and only way to get Whitehall to listen to your very real concerns and act. And, under the circumstances, will be the honourable course of action.
Mr Goldsmith, I take exception to your statement that the Town Council is not fit for purpose and is a layer of bureaucracy we do not need. I am confused as to what bureaucracy we (the town council) add and whether you are saying the Town Council should stay out of “the big things that matter most to the town” or should be disbanded completely? If it is the latter, I assume you would rather the town didn't have the things that the Council either organises or largely funds (via the precept) like the Wilmslow Show, Party in the Park, the Christmas lights, Incredible Edible, Wilmslow in Bloom, some of the business group events like the Motor Show, the Citizens Advice Bureau, the town’s CCTV system, and the flowers around the town to name just a few.
I accept that the Town Council has failed to influence the Local Plan but so has almost every council and pressure group in the borough so your criticism should be aimed at Cheshire East and their attitude towards consultation than the 15 members of the council who give up a significant amount of their time (for free) to try to make Wilmslow a nicer place to live.
So, rather than going back over old ground and blaming people for past (perceived) mistakes when there is work to be done, why don’t we think about what we can achieve going forward?
There are two opportunities over the next couple of months to influence the content of the Local Plan. The first is next Friday via our Cheshire East representatives who are voting on whether to approve the plan. They could vote to reject it or propose amendments. We need to make sure they are aware of and representing the views of the people who elected them just last May and are voting accordingly.
The next opportunity is during the consultation process. Again, we cannot guarantee that Cheshire East will listen to our opinions (on past performance, they won’t) but if we all comment, and they don’t listen, they will have to answer some difficult questions from the Inspector.
Clearly the problem lies in a poorly written NPPF which allows developers to ride roughshod through the planning regime; in fact it is a "developers charter".
We heard at last Thursday's SPB hearing, numerous town & parish councillors complaining bitterly their concerns for their towns have been and were continuing to be totally ignored, i.e. disregarded.
As I have written earlier, the best and strongest signal Conservative town & parish councillors across the country can send to the government about their and their voters very strong concerns with the current NPPF is to resign en masse. That could be the only signal of disquiet with the current planning mayhem the government will listen to.
My point is not party political, I am a life long Conservative, I am certain we at RoW will be pleased to work through such a mass resignation with the WTC Conservatives - under such circumstances we would reach an amicable electoral strategy with them.
Mr (Lyme Green fiasco) Menlove is not to be seen, unless he is advocating the painting of double-yellow lines up and down his own street and Mr Barton has been singularly silent since he, rightfully, objected to the building of houses just over his back fence.
All three of these Gentlemen voted against maintaining Wilmslow/Handforth Green Belt. Not one of them has ever offered a word of explanation for their actions; despite the clearly-expressed views of their electorate.