The rape of north Cheshire East's, and Wilmslow's and Handforth's, Green Belt will be unchecked thanks to the continuing disregard of the real facts of the so called national housing shortage by government, councils' incompetent planning departments and so called "independent" Planning Inspectors.
All these are fuelled by bullying, greedy, uncaring builders/developers/land owners and their equally grasping land agents (no names mentioned). The victims, local communities, will see their green fields disappear under concrete, gone for ever to fuel greed on an industrial scale.
According to a U.N. report, circa 2010, on world population growth, the UK has 1.8 children per couple. As the report points out, this is not growth, quite the opposite. So I ask, where has the purported demand for housing come about? Not from Britain's inhabitants.
A recent report by Ian Mulheim, Director of Consulting at Oxford Economics and a former Treasury economist, informs the world that in truth Britain has 1.4 million EMPTY homes (some of these will be "second homes"). He asserts "the reality - or at least, the best evidence......... is that the number of UK households has been growing at ONLY 152k per year since 2008. Consequently we now appear to have a whopping 1.2 million FEWER households....... than we anticipated in 2008."
Mulheim shows that far from the builders bullying planners to get their paws on ever more Green Belt, the opposite is true. There is no real demand, it is all a gigantic financial stategy of deceit. They don't need the Green Belt, communities such as ours do.
All this before we even consider the builders stocking up on their land-banks. The corrupt scenario is that a council refuses planning, miffed builders dash to appeal, throwing big money at such whilst councils have to use tax payer resources to defend. The builders argument is that "the council cannot show it has a 5 year supply of development". The builder wins BUT does not necessarily start building, instead banks the land. And repeats the strategy after every planning decision against development.
It is about time Government saw through this grubby charade of land banking. Tough financial penalties are needed to deter such anti-social practice - build now or suffer massive fines, money does have a habit of focusing the mind.
Government repeatedly states that the Green Belt "is safe" in its hands. Is it really? The reality is quite the opposite. We do not need to sacrifice any Green Belt locally, the housing projections are very badly flawed and there are ample Brownfield sites around the north of the Borough. Of course, developers being lazy and always looking for the most profitable sites, will prefer to put their diggers into pristine Green fields - much cheaper all round and helps massively to inflate their selling prices and swell profits.
If the Conservative government strategy is now to renege on its manifesto promise, it shouldn't be surprise when its core voters turn away.
When will somebody in government, in council planning, even a Inspector, open their eyes to the reality and see clearly that the building industry's argument is akin to "the emperor is starkers!"
Residents of Wilmslow (RoW) has consistently argued the case that projected growth, housing and commercial build, are all overstated. But we are battling against closed eyes and against a vested commercial interest. Unfortunately for Wilmslow's voters, the town's and Borough's Conservative councillors have fallen in line with the Party's continuing deception of the electorate. RoW is determined to put Wilmslow's residents first, not Party first as we see elsewhere.
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Of course, in other circumstances, one could raise this issue with one's Member of Parliament; however I suspect that as Tatton Conservatives are bankrolled by at least one house-builder, there seems little point.
http://bit.ly/KjHBtR
It now gets closer to a government deadline for it to be rejected, when national government will take on the task.
The blame culture will be rampant. CEC will be off the hook. Wilmslow could be divided and our MP with an exit route, long gone.
Government will add more greenfields to be concreted over.
No one at CEC will be fired. No one will be accountable.
Will national government listen to us? Or to WTC? Or to our CEC Cllrs?
Wilmslow will experience the worst of both worlds.
Solution? Ballot box, but by then will it be too late?
Houses for sale do not sell very quickly, every week we read of new developments which are ignored in the housing calculations (e.g. flats being developed on the nursing home site on Adlington Road), calculations are done on out-of-date or incorrect figures (see above), brown field sites & windfalls are underestimated or ignored, adjacent developments (Woodford etc) are downplayed or disregarded, infrastructure needs are ignored. Traffic analysis is at best optimistic - as any driver in the area could tell you based on the existing traffic difficulties.
Like many residents, I'm sure, I endorse Manuel's analysis and conclusions.
The net result is what Wilmslow town has become,an area where almost every square inch of land is greedily built over, a town choked with ever increasing traffic, as well as more deadly exhaust fumes. Not to mention the totally collapsing infrastructure getting worse by the day, with no contribution to this collapse or to architectural improvement to the town , created by this insatiable greed.
How do we stop it all ?
Maybe a body of media investigative journalists can expose the truths stated in Manuels article ? Anybody out there ?
I attended a Handforth Neighbourhood Plan meeting this week, and this is what I took away from it.
The Neighbourhood Plan is supposed to give communities a say in the implementation of Cheshire East's Local Plan for Handforth. Here we learned that Cheshire East Council:
- Have removed the Handforth Garden Village from the remit of Handforth Parish's Neighbourhood Plan, despite it sitting well within the Parish boundary
- Made it unclear whether Handforth Parish will receive the 15% CIL money it is legally entitled to from the development.
It means Handforth's Neighbourhood plan has no influence over the 1500 new homes and services being built on the green belt within its boundaries.
In addition the CS49 green belt development (Clay Lane/Sagars Road) of 250 new homes falls within the parish of Styal, not Handforth, so again no influence on the development for Handforth residents here either, and then there's the real kicker. There's no sign that Styal parish is going to build any roads to connect this development to Styal village. Instead it's proposed the entrance and exit will lie solely through Handforth's residential Meriton Road. This despite the Department for Transport's own best practice guidance which states that new housing estates should contain multiple entrance/exit routes to create better integration with the existing community, and encourage walking and cycling. People living in this area will use Handforth's roads and facilities while the CIL money will be going to Styal parish. How is that fair?
The promised infrastructure for the Garden Village (healthcare, schools etc....) cannot be built until 3-400 homes are completed on the site. Where is the self-sustainable development promised by government and CEC? Where is the capacity in the local area going to come from to allow existing services to cope until new facilities are built?
It's disappointing that CEC has not taken seriously:
- their role in explaining the impact of these big developments to all residents clearly
- the consultation feedback on the problems developments will cause.
It's also disappointing when considering the above, the lengths CEC has gone to, to prevent the community's voice being meaningfully heard
Anyone living in the area who wants to try to halt the developments and/or improve the council's treatment of it's citizens (There is some urgency required as plans for the Garden Village have started and likely to be put out for consultation in the Summer):
- Complete the Neighbourhood Plan survey posted through your door. This at least gives you a say on services and infrastructure that are affected by these sites and as well as anything about Handforth as it currently is that you would like to see improved.
- Comment on the latest consultation on the Local Plan - the deadline is 5pm Monday 20th March
- Sign the petition Manuel mentions above https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/177333 asking the government to debate community involvement in green belt building decisions
- Get writing to politicians. I've not received a response to the email I sent George Osborne on 20th January (before I even knew about any of the above), so I will follow that up and contact the Communities and Local Government Secretary, Shadow Communities and Local Government Secretary, and anyone else I think can help. Any suggestions?
- Anyone organising a petition, it's important to note that one petition containing multiple signatures will only be counted as one objection by Cheshire East Council. To make an impact everyone who wants to sign should send their own individual submission to CEC. Maybe a template could be set up?
Thank you for reading.