Wilmslow town councillors have met with officers from Cheshire East Council to be briefed on the findings from the Wilmslow Vision consultation.
Following discussions and workshops with local stakeholders, a public consultation began on March 30th, offering the people of Wilmslow the opportunity to have their say on draft proposals to shape the future development of the town over the next 20 years.
The Wilmslow Vision will feed into the Local Plan – which will guide the development of all Cheshire East towns, villages and countryside up to 2030.
The Draft Wilmslow Vision showed potential proposals for boosting the town centre environment, improving transport connections and priorities for investment in the town's infrastructure. However, the most controversial element of the draft plan was the suggestion that 1500 new homes will be built in Wilmslow, largely on green belt land, by 2030.
The public consultation for the Draft Wilmslow Vision was initially intended to run for one month, however it was extended for another month, until May 31st, to enable as many local residents as possible to have their say on the draft proposals.
In total 1,446 responses were received to the questionnaire, four petitions were also received, from groups including 'Lindow Action Group', 'Keep Prestbury Road Green Belt', 'Save Our Green Belt!' and 'No building in Dean Row', and 491 copies of a standard letter were submitted.
Town councillors met with officers from Cheshire East Council on Wednesday, 29th August, to share the key messages from the public consultation and to discuss and agree the next steps on producing the Wilmslow Town Strategy.
A spokesman for Wilmslow Town Council said "The views received will be very important in sending a clear message to Cheshire East Council with regards to the enhancement of Wilmslow and perhaps most obviously in helping protect Wilmslow from unwanted development in the Green Belt over the next 20 years.
"Wilmslow Town Council have now put work in place to immediately realign the Vision with the strongly expressed views received and indeed will be working with some of these residents, for the benefit of the town."
The Town Council has said they will now use the information and work with resident group representatives to revise the document, which they plan to complete by mid November.
The draft vision document is still available to download from the Cheshire East Council website where the comments received during the consultation period can also be viewed.
Comments
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As a result a number of people in and around the areas with earmarked Green Belt sites were very alarmed. As is usual, no one was doing anything about protecting these sites. However, it appeared that some residents of the affected lands decided, totally independently & without coordination, to set up meetings of local residents.
Thereby numerous public meetings were held in various localised venues & attended by hundreds of concerned residents, all at very short notice. These meetings showed the level of deep concern at the prospect of Wilmslow's Green Belt being carved up by developers.
There were at least six totally independent meetings held around the town for the concerned local residents. The groups were in Fulshaw Park, Dean Row, Upcast/Cumber Lane,Welton Drive/Chesham Road, Harefield and Thorngrove areas.
It was very soon decided that these six groups of very concerned residents should come together to act as one voice, one strong lobby group for the protection of our town's Green Belt. The unified groups would now work under the banner of Residents Of Wilmslow (RoW). Each area group is responsible for keeping its own neighbours informed, a number of groups have now built up email lists of its local residents; this makes ease of communication that much easier.
A number of benefits have ensued as a result of a unified voice via RoW. One was a large gathering of residents from across the town in the Leisure Centre in late April. Another has been to gain the attention of CEC - it now listens to our, the concerned residents, disquiet over the Green Belt issue, to our views & suggestions.
RoW has been thanked by the Leader of CEC, Cllr Michael Jones, for the "fantastic" response to the Consultation, we motivated the town to answer the Questionairre and you did with the largest number of returns anywhere in Cheshire East - it would quite simply not have happened without a few very concerned & worried residents getting off their proverbials, pointing out their concerns & consequences to their local neighbourhoods, instead of sitting back waiting for "someone to do something".
RoW does not profess to represent a whole strata of Wilmslow's residents, we are what we say we are, Residents Of Wilmslow, - it is concerned with protecting the town's Green Belt and this it will continue to fight for.
In the meantime, if anyone wishes to ask RoW questions, they may do so via .