Residents of Wilmslow urge you to have your say

A group of Wilmslow residents, who have been campaigning to protect the green belt around the town, believe it is vital for all local residents to respond to the latest consultation document and make their views known.

Residents of Wilmslow (RoW) are leafleting every home in Wilmslow urging everyone to object to the proposals in the Draft Cheshire East Local Plan, which include: building 75 houses on green belt land at the Royal London site, 225 houses at Adlington Road and taking Fulshaw Fields, west of Alderley Road, out of green belt and safeguarding it for future development.

Speaking about the Royal London site, Manuel Golding of RoW said "It appears that the Council, to assist the company in its plans to destroy Wilmslow, is willing to sacrifice Wilmslow's southern border of green belt between us and Alderley Edge, eventually merging as one urban sprawl. We do not believe the populations of the two towns have the desire to merge via sprawl. This is what may occur unless people voice their "objection" to both Cheshire East's and Royal London's plans."

He added "We reject Royal London's employment argument – there are ample employment opportunities within the nearby neighbouring Greater Manchester area, i.e. the airport's projects, and within the borough locally (AstraZeneca, Waters etc). Royal London has ample vacant office spaces – as shown by a permanent board advertising its offices to let – why does it need more offices? It has not filled its current to let offices for years."

RoW has provided Cheshire East Council with detailed information on what they feel are enough brownfield and windfall sites within the town to more than enable the asked for 400 new dwellings to be built.

Manuel Golding explained "This will ensure that our highly valuable green belt will be preserved intact and hopefully, the safeguarded (for development) Adlington Road site will be saved from developers. Our strategy may be summed up in a few words, 'Save Green - Build Brown!' "

The group has also raised concerns about the Council's website and the process for completing the questionnaire online.

"We are becoming increasingly concerned with the difficulties being experienced by very many people attempting to navigate the Council's web site. This, we know, has resulted in incorrect answers being recorded, including residents' wishes to record "Object" being transposed into "Comment only", said Manuel Golding.

"We encourage everyone, whether you agree with RoW's strategy or not, to record their views. The Council's web site is extremely confusing, we even have IT professionals reporting great difficulties in trawling through the site. One IT person has told us it took him over 45 minutes to complete. This shows there is a basic fault with the Council's on line process. We have lodged our complaint with the Council and we may have to consider our action at the end of this 'consultation' process."

Responses to the proposals should be made either on line at www.cheshireeast.gov.uk/localplan, via email to localplan/cheshireeast.gov.uk or by letter to: Spatial Planning, Cheshire East Council, Westfields, Sandbach, CW11 1HZ.

All responses must be received by 26th February.

Tags:
Local Plan, Residents of Wilmslow
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Comments

Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.

Steph Sankey
Wednesday 13th February 2013 at 1:47 pm
I objected online last night. I am a working mum of 2 and would call myself internet literate. Having worked in advertising and marketing and helped design various websites, I can safely say I have never come across a more user-unfriendly interface. We are CEC's customers, at the end of the day, and I don't see many commercial/private companies treating their customers in this way...the website is unclear, badly designed and a nightmare to navigate. On top of which, when u click to make a comment, it seems like nothing happens, until u realise the comment box HAS actually appeared but out of sight, lower down the page, so u have to scroll down to get to it!
What a disgrace...
Aside from that, I am utterly confused about which strategy is whose: CEC have one, Wilmslow Town Council have one, then there was the Vision! Is anyone else as confused as me?? ;)
Neil Matthews
Wednesday 13th February 2013 at 7:08 pm
I find the site almost impenetrable as I use Apple products. I tried to complain about this online but the complaint form didn't work! I called to point this out and hey said they wold check and get back to me - 3 months later I'm still waiting for that response. So it'd be nice to support but not really happy at buying a new laptop to do it :)