Campaigners who are continuing their fight to protect the Green Belt around Wilmslow from development claim that housebuilding in the town is well ahead of schedule so there is no need to build on any of the Green Belt surrounding Wilmslow.
The draft Development Strategy, which sets out the overall number of homes and jobs that will be needed over the next 20 years, proposed that 400 new homes and 10 hectares of new employment land were required in Wilmslow by 2030.
The consultation document proposed that 225 houses are built on Green Belt land off Adlington Road, 75 homes are built behind Royal London and the green space opposite Royal London is taken out of the Green Belt and categorised as safeguarded land for future development. In addition the document proposes the use of land behind Royal London for employment use.
Residents of Wilmslow (RoW) have been conducting a weekly survey and review of Cheshire East Council's (CEC) planning approvals as well as carrying out physical inspections of building sites in order to ascertain the level of housebuilding that has been taking place.
As a result of this work they conclude that to date 193 new dwellings and agreed planning permissions have been achieved in Wilmslow since 2010, which equates to 64 dwellings per year - which is well above the annual requirement of 20 new dwellings per annum.
Manuel Golding, speaking on behalf of Residents of Wilmslow, said "We believe Wilmslow is well ahead of the housebuilding programme Cheshire East has agreed with us. At this rate of current build Wilmslow will deliver somewhere in the region of 1982 homes by May 2030 through natural windfall developments on brownfield sites only, well over the requirement of 400 new homes over the 2010 to 2030 period.
"Given these figures there is absolutely no need for Cheshire East to attack or re-designate any of the existing Green Belt; there is no need to allow any development whatever on the so called safeguarded site at Adlington Road, nor re-designate the Alderley Road field opposite and owned by Royal London, from Green Belt to safeguarded.
"Further, the proposed developments nearby at Woodford airfield, Media City and Airport City will have a major impact on infrastructure and traffic volumes which must restrain any further development in Wilmslow."
Manuel continued " Also, we have been pressing CEC to change its attitude to the largest brownfield site in the borough, Alderley Park. We believe this would offer the opportunity for either mixed commercial and housing or just the latter, thus offering relief from intrusive attacks upon our local Green Belt and greenfields and would fulfil the Council's housing needs.
"We have also highlighted to CEC the need to attack the blight of so many empty office developments in the town, with a strategy of persuading the property owners to alter offices to homes, thus playing their part in revitalising the area and meeting home requirements. At the same time CEC seems reluctant to embrace the fast changing format brought about by the internet - shopping on line and working on line from home. Both these acelerating formats are making store retailing and large offices things of the past."
We understand that Cheshire East Council are due to publish their findings from the borough wide consultation in the next few weeks.
Comments
Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.
CEC are supposed to running a consultation and listening to residents opinions, and the results from the recent Dean Row election clearly suggest that residents have made their opinion clear; they want to save their Green Belt from the Conservative led Cheshire East Council.
If it is facts you are looking for consider the following:
CEC's Summary Document distributed in February of this year proposed a total build of 28,400 new houses between 2010 and 2030 a sum of 1420 per month.
The DCLG's detailed housing projections for Cheshire East for 2011 to 2021 released in April 2013 show a rounded figure of 1,000 new households required per month, this number decreases through this period which means CEC cannot claim to need a substantial yearly increase from 2021 to 2030.
Based therefore on the projections of the DCLG CEC require 22,000 new households during the period 2010 to 2030.
Since the start date of the Local Plan period, 2010, CEC have already given planning consent for some 9,000 dwellings across the Borough therefore NEW housing requirements 2010 to 2030 SHOULD be, at most, 13,000.
The question therefore is why are CEC proposing 15,400 more houses than are actually needed particularly when it means taking land out of the Green Belt?
Could it be that our, the residents, Green Belt land of which the current members of CEC are only custodians, is a valuable resource to plug the holes in their finances?
It is rather a pity that Mr. Barton has failed once again to get his facts correct. He surely should know, as his election foray would or should have made him aware, that after researching his "facts" the 400 new homes build requirement runs from April 2010 to April 2030, a 20 year period. We are in fact over 3 years into the period, not 2 as Mr. Barton repeats. Delighted he had, as he said, "researched" the house build numbers!
The indisputable fact is that there have been at least 193 new additional homes either built or with planning approval since April 2010, over 3 years. Elementary maths will show that puts Wilmslow almost half way (48%) to its requirement, irrespective of "before the plan is agreed."
RoW is not "setting expectations far too high" - the figures are factual and as Mr. Barton quite rightly points out, they are on "public record."
RoW is certainly not claiming any sort of victory, other than a recent by-election win, we are just making the Wilmslow public fully aware that the town is well on its way to meeting Cheshire East's target long before 2030.
The big question is, will Cheshire East move the goalposts? We will see next week on the release of its Development Strategy document.
We, the public, will have a 6 weeks period, following the publication, to put any concerns highlighted in this document to the "Independent" Inspector(s) -another wake-up call to Wilmslow.
Just don't understand Mr. Barton's idea that CE should not encourage buy-to-let purchasers. The Government is desperate for home buyers for whatever objective. Landlords will be looking for renters, especially at this time of invisible mortgages.