Over 100 residents attended a public meeting to consider whether thousands of pounds should be spent on producing a neighbourhood plan for Wilmslow.
The Town Council hosted the public meeting on Monday, 30th September, to highlight and debate the benefits, limitations and drawbacks of Wilmslow undertaking to produce a neighbourhood plan.
Neighbourhood plans are planning documents that allow communities to set out their vision for their local area and general planning policies to shape and direct development.
They are led and written by the community, not the Council, but have to be in line with the adopted plans of Cheshire East and national policy.
Preparing a neighbourhood plan is a substantial undertaking which will take significant time and effort from a community as well as a substantial amount of money. There were several figures mentioned at the meeting, in terms of how much it would cost to produce a neighbourhood plan, ranging from £50,000 to £150,000.
Presentations were given by John Knight, a chartered planning professional who is currently taking a leading role in Neighbourhood Planning matters in the North West and Alan Warburton, the Town Clerk of Winsford who are currently going through the process.
Wilmslow Town Council agreed a publicity budget of £3000 to enable them to hold the public meeting and publicise the event, to give members of the public and town councillors the opportunity to learn more about the implications of producing a neighbourhood plan and what a plan can achieve.
The Town Council, which doesn't have an established position on the matter, wished to assess the level of interest, the nature and tone of the feedback and the potential volunteer pool that would be required to progress a plan.
At the meeting 70% of attendees expressed a preference, with residents indicating initial support for producing a Neighbourhood Plan in the ratio of 4 in favour to 1 against.
Cllr Keith Purdom, Chairman of Wilmslow Town Council said "We were delighted that the meeting was well attended and from the feedback received afterwards. The Town Council will now consider the matter further by trying to get as good an estimate as possible of potential cost, by giving thought as to the representative nature of the attendees at the meeting and of examining the potential resources available to the town."
Comments
Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.
I suspect the reason so many people want a Neighborhood Plan is because they vehemently disagree with Cheshire East's ideas for developing our area.
Can CE then ignore the Neighborhood Plan if it decides Wilmslow wants far less development than is being proposed, so is not "in-line" with their and national policy?
Or does the NP merely decide where these houses will be built and what type?
If a neighbourhood plan is developed and adopted before the local plan is adopted, then the local plan has to include the principles of the neighbourhood plan.
Therefore if a neighbourhood plan can be written and then get adopted by Wilmslow Town Council before CEC get their local plan adopted then we (the Wilmslow Community) can decided how many new houses are to be built in Wilmslow and where.
However, it was also made clear that a plan of any kind stating "NO" new housing development would not be accepted as it would not be in line with national policy.
A Neighbourhood plan cannot contradict what the local authority has decided in its local plan and at the end of the day the whole expensive exercise could be wiped out by a ‘no’ vote requiring just a fraction over 50% of people who bother to vote.
Wilmslow and Handforth have been overloaded already trying to follow Cheshire East’s shifting and drawn out consultation on its ‘Local Plan’ and the council has largely ignored the constructive concerns of residents about building on greenbelt land.
Rural land east of the A34 bypass and off Prestbury Road, which offer the last open views from the town to the Pennine Hills and Alderley Edge have been pushed into development plans by Cheshire East. Farmland between the Royal London offices and the Wilmslow bypass has been earmarked for yet more ‘business shed’ development. The ‘Waters’ development has already destroyed the rural western approach into Wilmslow. Another commercial zone on the southern approach will destroy the remaining rural feel here too as greater Wilmslow’s growing urbanisation continues.
Is there an alternative? Winsford in Cheshire was given as an example of an existing Neighbourhood Plan. It will cost £150,000 and take from January 2011 to Spring 2014 to develop. A plan for Wilmslow is guestimated to cost up to £100,000. Winsford decided its priorities, such as making the centre greener and more attractive, as have other towns in Cheshire West. Why don’t we use this experience instead of constantly reinventing the wheel and spending more years arriving at what are likely to be very similar conclusions?
The Wilmslow Trust presented low-cost, high-impact landscape enhancement plans to Cheshire East years ago but the council took no action. It is time the council revisited this.
Somehow the even greedier Manchester Council has acquired green belt by the M56 and "airport city" with 1.5 million square feet of space is to be built with Chinese money. I recall Bryan Robson being refused planning permission for a sports injury clinic by the site of the Marriot Hotel on the grounds that the land ajoining the carpark was green belt!!
We are only residents and taxpayers. The top end houses now are very hard to sell and with the continuing destruction of the reason why people pay a premium to live here the only way is down and off to somewhere still pleasant and less attractive to the various conmen!