Macclesfield General Hospital is bursting at the seams. Last week they made an appeal for people to stay away from A&E unless they have a dire emergency. Meanwhile GP's surgeries are struggling to cope and the pharmacies where we were urged to go for medical advice are under threat of closure.
Dental practices are not a whole lot better with many reluctant to take on new NHS patients.
As many parents know places in local schools are increasingly difficult to obtain forcing pupils to travel. Given the congestion on our roads travelling even a few miles can be a long commute.
So here we are with plans approved to create a new 'garden village' of 1500 homes on the eastern edge of Handforth and n'er a word about infrastructure. While plans announced so far are specific on the number of houses they are rather vague on the details of schools and healthcare facilities.
Joined up thinking it isn't.
I'm no expert but would it not be a good idea to start with a plan of the infrastructure before they start throwing up hundreds of new houses or is that too logical? Are we going to wait until the roads are gridlocked and schools are using Portakabins for classrooms?
We already have the sick sleeping in hospital corridors and ambulances unable to offload patients for lack of beds. Cheshire East seem to be hell-bent on closing every facility they can get away with. So what's going on?
How can they plan cut-backs and closures at the same time they are planning thousands of additional houses? It makes no sense whatsoever.
The only logic to be deduced from this is a that projects generating profit will be acted upon with great alacrity while those requiring expenditure will be ignored, avoided and denied until the chaos becomes overwhelming. It's a self-perpetuated crisis.
I don't know what image a 'garden village' is supposed to project but I'm guessing it isn't overcrowded schools, gridlock and an overnight stay in a hospital corridor.
The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of wilmslow.co.uk.
Comments
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Some years later, the Council, decided to bring back the village "feel" of the place by spending a fortune on street signage and calling it Alkrington Garden Village" What a typical con. It's not a village ant more, they took that away when it was completely overdeveloped and the precious quality of life that was its original design, was lost forever.
Here we go again, no vision, not democratic, short term greed, and a disaster for the existing population, some of whom will move away like I did, but who cares?