I've just read a letter in our parish magazine urging residents to make representations during the public consultation period ending April 19. 'To date the views of house builders and major land owners have persuaded the Council to allocate large greenfield sites for development,' states the author.
He adds that regardless of your views it is important to express your opinion on the revised plan as you can be sure house builders will be trying to persuade the Council to increase housing numbers. To date the developers have been very successful at getting large areas of land taken out of the Green Belt.
Okay, so that's just one person's view except the author of this particular letter is none other than Peter Yates who was chief planning officer of Macclesfield Borough Council for 26 years. If anyone knows how these 'public consultations' work he certainly does.
Nothing less than a cacophony makes any impression on council officials who regard public opinion with scarcely disguised contempt. We are uneducated rabble to be patronised and ignored (for our own good).
You may be sick and tired of this whole damn land-grab process but when your ex chief planning officer tells you to 'express your views' lest developers and land owners cosy up to the Council and have it all their own way it's wise to listen.
In my experience many of the participants involved in these grand schemes are usually long gone by the time reality hits home. You may recall the willingness with which MBC granted late night liquor licences to the big breweries despite overwhelming public objection.
By the time it became obvious that far from creating a 'European café culture all night boozing simply fuelled anti-social behaviour those who had championed the change had left the scene leaving residents to deal with the fall-out.
Clearly Mr Yates fears that vested interests will rule the day unless residents state their case loudly and in public. Given the scant regard shown to communities thus far he has a good point.
At the very start of the process Mr Yates offered to show Cheshire East a large number of brownfield sites suitable for housing development. That offer was never accepted and one has to ask why?
Could it be that the addition of those sites interfered with unspoken 'arrangements' made with certain parties?
I don't know the answer to that. I do know that when the man who ran the planning department for over quarter of a century tells us we must act to save our green spaces we should do so.
If digging up green fields while leaving ugly brownfield sites go untouched makes sense to you you may go back to sleep. If not act NOW.
To register your views on the Local Plan Strategy Proposed Changes, visit the Cheshire East website pages on the Local Plan.
Alternatively, you can fill in a comment form at Wilmslow library.
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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• A huge increase in traffic and gridlocking on the A34 at peak times (don’t forget the impact of the housing going up at Woodford on the old aerodrome site)
• A large increase in commuting both ways, into and out of Wilmslow and Handforth
• An even greater shortage in primary and secondary school places with nothing in the plan for extra provision
• A severe shortage of health services with no plans in place for extra provision
• Loss of green open space with an impact on recreation, air quality and wild life
• Wilmslow sprawling into Handforth and Stockport
• Building more than 36,000 houses in the borough as a whole over half of which are to accommodate people it is somehow estimated will migrate into Cheshire East
• No adequate provision for much needed housing that is truly affordable for those starting out on their careers
The large developers, sniffing around the north of the borough, with their large fangs open to devour all and any plot of Green Belt, have and will throw £tens of thousands into the pot to get their prize piece of England's green and pleasant land. Meanwhile, they will all go to appeal after appeal to get their prize, win and sit on the land in their greed has blighted, in their "land-banks".
Paul Schofield, director-general for housing & planning at the Dept for Communities & Local Gov says "The big issue ...is that volume builders want a 20% return on capital and build only at the speed they can see sales coming forward..." Schofield then told MPs that smaller builders would . "...build out at pace...". It is the large housing firms that are badly letting the country down, they are only concerned with and focused on their bottom line, not the country's crying needs.
They are not interested in brown field sites when it is going to inhibit their 20% margin factor.Therefore it is all tally-ho to the Green Belt and green fields for them.Cheshire East Council, pushed, shoved, prodded by government and avaricious developers leaves Joe Public in a very precarious position.
This illustrates developer tactics - Cheshire East's own figures for the period of the LPs life, 1st April 2010 to 31st March 2015 (I haven't got the Council's latest): Planning permissions granted: 18.935 homes, Homes built 3,552. If developers were so desperate to build homes why had they only seen fit to build under 19% of their approvals? Simple - this keeps the market price at the maximum. Meanwhile, the fact the country desperately needs housing, albeit of the "affordable" type, is irrelevant to our greedy big building companies. Meanwhile, they will spend on appeals to obtain planning permissions on sites councils had initially turned down. Developers cite "5 years housing supply" in mitigation which isn't there because they are not building. So they win more permissions, creating neighbourhood blight and repeat the process - not building, more appeals etc.
They cannot lose but we do!
The Green Belt boundaries were drawn tightly around the Borough's towns & villages over 30 years ago.
Land which had previously been allocated for housing development in Wilmslow and Poynton was put back into the Green Belt thus restricting the spread of concrete over our precious green fields.
Over the past 20 years well over 80% of housing development has been on brownfield sites.
Over the period 2003-13 the figure was 89%.
Now here is the BIG difference between the Macclesfield Borough's Local Plan strategy -
The Macclesfield Borough Local Plan was a brownfield first Plan.
The Cheshire East Local Plan is a greenfield first Plan.
The result of this major difference is that Macclesfield Borough's planning department, led by Peter Yates, was to prioritise brownfields and not to build on our "green and pleasant land", as Simon Worthington mistakenly accuses Peter Yates. Whereas Cheshire East's plan, led by the former leader Cllr Michael Jones, followed by his sycophantic Party councillors and by the Council's chief planner, has been just the opposite - to bully everyone into accepting the wanton and unnecessary destruction (= loss) of the valuable Green Belt. Why? To appease the avaricious building industry which is too lazy and greedy to consider the local concerns, going for the greater profit margin without any consideration for the neighbourhoods they will destroy for ever. There are brownfield sites aplenty within the old Macc Borough area, the Council should demand these are developed first. But it will not, preferring to curry favour with the developers over local voters.
Simon, judging by your remarks, I take it you are concerned with the loss of the old "borough's green and pleasant fields!". In which case, we will welcome you in joining Residents of Wilmslow in our fight to keep the Green Belt from developers concrete, which will result in mass traffic jams, totally inadequate road system, chronic shortage of school places, overrun sewage system, over burdened medical services, lack of public transport - no provisions for these have been included in this Council's Local Plan.
It is a recipe for gridlock disaster.
http://bit.ly/1MIqhJs
If many of these are selected for development in the Greater Manchester Local Plan there is going to be huge traffic congestion and good bye to a lot of the green belt. Cheshire East's greenfield first policy will then really hit us all!
My sister, who lives in Sandbach, went to a planning meeting to see what was going to happen to the fields near her house. The consultation which was to have lasted all day was ended after only a few hours. She was told not to worry as the council were going to get their housing quota by developing the land around Wilmslow !!! Our green belt doesn't seem to stand a chance of remaining safe from the builders if the planners seem to have already made up their minds.
Register your protests before it is too late.
I remember a plan by Prescott to have the North West as one area - seems to me that we are getting this by the back door.
The percentage figures I quoted came from a most reliable source and via the old Macclesfield Borough Council's own records.
Macclesfield B C's strict policy was "Brownfields First" and this protected our Green Belt.
Unfortunately, Cheshire East Council's policy is completely at odds with the former, it is
definitely "Green Belt (and fields) First" - this is what the large developers want so CEC will give it to them.
Let's be quite frank, as far as the leadership & planners at CEC are concerned, developers are far more important than we mere voters. They deliver money, loads of it, whereas we are only able to deliver a vote once in 4 years.