A property developer is proposing to build a residential development of approximately 800 homes on Green Belt land located in the south west of the village.
A promotional document has been prepared by Terence O'Rourke Ltd on behalf of Gladman Developments to demonstrate the "sustainability, suitability and deliverability" of land off Ryleys Lane and Chelford Road for a residential development which would be deliverable in the short term. The site is available now and, according to the developers, it offers a suitable location for housing to be delivered within the next five years.
The site consists of approximately 66 hectares of Green Belt land which is located either side of the A34 bypass and presently used as pasture farmland. The suggestion is that land to the east of the bypass would be come forward for residential development, on a phased basis up to 2030, whilst land to the west of the bypass would remain in the Green Belt and deliver community uses.
The purpose of the promotional document is not only to demonstrate the sustainability, suitability and deliverability of the site for residential led development but also to secure its allocation as a Strategic Site in the new Cheshire East Local Plan.
Included in the proposed Master Plan are:
- A linear park on the western side of the A34 offering recreational trails, including walking and cycling options, and wetland areas
- Playing pitches and courts which would be accessible to the wider community
- Green corridors providing a network of pedestrian and cycle trails
- Allotments and/or community orchards
- An extension to Alderley Edge cemetery, with a dedicated car park and new entrance
- Potential for a car park or drop off area for Ryleys School
- A potential new primary school
- Employment and retail land for start-up businesses and/or small local retail provision
- Local park accommodating children's play area and a providing a more formal arrangement than the green corridors and linear park which could be used for community events
The promotional document concludes that "There is a clear and accepted need for Green Belt release in order for Alderley Edge to continue to perform as a Key Service Centre. The release of the Green Belt land will ensure that the objectively assessed needs of the borough can be met, and forms an integral component of the positive preparation of the Local Plan. It will ensure that Alderley Edge can accommodate appropriate and much needed affordable and market housing."
It continues "The site represents the best available suitable and sustainable site to be released from the Green Belt, having regard to the economic, social and environmental benefits which it would derive."
Click here to download the promotional document.
What do you think of the proposal? Share your views via the comment box below.
Comments
Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.
I notice its a 'potential' new Primary School, with 800 new homes you can guarantee its not just a new Primary School that will be needed. Utter madness it sure is.
As this land was part of the compulsory purchase to construct the by-pass was not beyond the wit of the Council to ensure that it reverted to agricultural use when they chose to sell it off.
How much longer can we call this road a "by-pass" it has already become a clogged, undersized, through-route around Handforth, thanks to infill by local builders.
"Companies like Gladman are rapacious in their behaviour and are profiteering. Very clearly what they are doing is going to the most expensive parts of the shires and looking for greenfield sites in areas where the local council does not have a core strategy in place. These areas then have inappropriate developments forced down their throats." Sunday Times, 3rd Nov 2014 http://thetim.es/1rsGYfC
Cheshire East has entered the Local Plan Inquiry with Alderley Edge as a Local Service Centre, and there is absolutely no reason to alter that.
The “master plan” is the last of the fag packet documents and completely unworthy of any “plan” soubriquet; it is a wish list of nonsense.
A SCHOOL? Even on this preposterous scheme, the rate of build is just too slow to justify a school ever being built; new walking areas? Alderley Edge is already full of attractive walks and public rights of way. An extension to the cemetery? We already have a field next to the existing cemetery, which was earmarked as the new extension to the cemetery by Macclesfield Borough Council.
Allotments? We already have allotments coming out of our ears and the vogue is away from large allotment plots, and the Parish Council can already meet all the anticipated demand for smaller allotment plot sizes.
The public realm type areas in the blue area, and the housing in the red area? The bypass was built to a “bypass” specification - i.e. an A to B road. Each of these public realm fancies, from the school, the park and walkway and cycle areas, would all requires access roads from the bypass between Chelford Road and Brook Lane. It would be Highway lunacy to have a number of access points at such critical points, and indeed at any points along the bypass.
And the final piece of incredulity has to be reserved for “affordable housing”, since this is clearly a model based on high open market expectations of the Alderley Edge open market house prices. The model which will deliver affordable housing, is one which relies on very little profit for the developers and land owners, and it is essentially a financial solution, but based upon shared equity principles. That means the new owners own 50% of the property and the developers don’t run to the bank with large wedges, because any potential profit is long delayed.
This must be the biggest attempted heist since the wagons rolled into the wild west selling moonshine hooch.
Of course, it goes without saying that any attempt by Cheshire East to alter the status of the village would be resisted fiercely by myself as the local Cheshire East Councillor, and by the Parish Council and any attempt to file a planning application would result in the Parish Council raising funds to finance legal representation at the appropriate forums. And we have the local MP to come and support the Parish Councillors/Borough Councillor in manning the barricades against completely unsustainable attempts at ruining the character of a special village.
I am extremely disappointed that such a substantial and speculative proposal could have been in the pipeline as a proposal without any notice from Cheshire East to the local Councillor, and I will be taking this up with the Chief Legal Officer immediately to find out what communications have actually taken place between paid officers and or elected members and the movers of this proposal. This is not just a proposed planning application, it is a major potential impact on our village and should not have got this far without the locally elected councillors being given notice. This is a shabby and shoddy way to proceed, and I shall make that point!
The current version of the Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA) gives potential capacity for these sites as follows.
SHLAA Site ref 3786 potential capacity = 293 (Area A on page 18)
SHLAA Site ref 3787 potential capacity = 1167 (Areas B & C on page 18)
SHLAA Site ref 3788 potential capacity = 196 (Area E on page 18)
SHLAA Site ref 3789 potential capacity = 386 (Area D on page 18)
If i have read the proposal correctly then they only plan to build new houses on Areas A , B and C which equates to 1460 potential new houses NOT 800.
Am I missing something here Please let me know if i have misunderstood!!!!!!!
cannot cope with such an overwhelming increase. Also we were promised that following the construction of the bypass there would not be any ribbon development.
Parking in the village is a major problem and the A535 (Ryles Lane) is an access road to the site. This road is already clogged with cars parking all day sometimes on both sides of the road and opposite each other -Highway Code offence. When narrowed in this way the road is positively dangerous
and this is the road used by our schoolchildren!
We are fortunate to have a very good medical practice in the village, but most patients would probably agree that the doctors and staff are already
working to capacity.An increase of such a scale would surely detract from the service given.
The proposed development is presented as doing the village a favour whereas it will destroy the character of Alderley Edge.
The only possible group who could be consulted or bribed would be the primary school, with the offer of a new school. As a Primary School Governor, are you saying that the primary school tacitly support this proposal? Given the drawing at the top of the article, the proposed school is in the blue area or no mans land. Pupils would either have to walk for miles to reach that school, or be driven down to the roundabout on Wilmslow Road and back up the bypass.
Which Primary School Governors would agree to support a scheme which adversely impacts the pupils in such a way as this? Who were they serving, the pupils or themselves?
Change is always difficult but we are lucky to live in a country where voices on both sides of the proposal can be heard.
Sustainable, thriving communities require strong local employment and sensibly designed housing that sits comfortably alongside local facilities, at first look this seems just such a scheme.
You are not a registered elector in Alderley Edge, nor even Cheshire, according to 192.com.
Your opinions may be taken as the views of someone who has a vested interest in making millions from the value of Alderley Edge without having to live with the consequences
Thanks for making me look at the plan again, and it is a bit clearer, and as you say, the accesses for quite a number of houses is proposed to be off Chelford Road, just at Chorley Old Hall. There is a substantial challenge of proposing high density low cost housing, plus a school just behind the houses on Downesway. The Highways issues would be immense. However, the premise of the plan is false : Alderley Edge is not a Key Service Centre and the Chief Spatial Planning Officer is writing to Gladmans to point out the factual error in their presentation. Alderley Edge is a Local Service Centre, and the land is designated Green Belt.
A Local Plan process is the examination of the Council submission, and Developers will have had quite a few attempts at trying to get their sites included in the planning approval system.
As a final push, they employ top flight Barristers to come and pummel the Council Officers trying to get their sites included. Indeed they have submitted so many pleas to have their clients land included, that the Inspector had to adjourn the process in order to absorb the lengthy submissions.
Do you think it would be stressful having about 15 to 20 top planning Barristers trying to trip up Officers - you bet your life it is.
But yes we do have a Chief Spatial Planning Officer, and he has a very good team behind him.
And when the process looks like it will frustrate the particular developers, they release proposals which have no local planning approval or support, such as the Ryleys Farm project. Shame on those local groups who are led by the nose to the trough.
Are you specifically talking about these Developers (sic): Jones Homes, Redrow Homes, Royal London Asset Management and The Tatton Estate?
http://bit.ly/1Fnq5gZ
Here in Rothley, Leicester, the Leicester Western bypass has attracted new build on farmland and the villages of Rothley, Birstall and Mountsorrel are becoming one. This is what the A34 will do to Alderley. It is unavoidable. The builders (money men) cannot resist. Promises will mean nothing.
Incidentally, affordable housing - stick to counting airborne porcines.
Yours, a voter from another County.
Here's another one: Cllr Keegan, why did you vote against the amendment below which would have taken the following Green Belt/Safeguarded sites out of the Local Plan thereby protecting them from the Developers who you are now castigating?
"That the following strategic sites be deleted from the Cheshire East Local Plan Strategy:-
CS26 – Royal London, Wilmslow
CS27 – Wilmslow Business Park
CS30 – Handforth East Growth Village
CS34 – (Safeguarded) Handforth East Growth Village
CS35 - (Safeguarded) Prestbury Road, Wilmslow
CS36 - (Safeguarded) Upcast Lane, Wilmslow
CS7 – Shavington East”
Just curious.
Have you been approached or had any discussions with Terence O'Rourke Ltd, Gladman Developments or any of their representatives?
Fitzwilliam - the simple answer is no.no.no and no. Not ever.
Taylor - It was a stupid amendment which was established for publicity rather than effect. An amendment to a motion is either passed in its entirety or it fails - I am sure many Councillors could have supported some of the sites on the list, but that was not an option. To have voted for that amendment would have meant that Conservative Councillors did not support the local plan.
Thank-you for your answer to my second question, your response is wide of the mark; yourself and the Wilmslow Councillors disregarded the expressed wishes of your electors (how much more plain could those wishes have been, be after the utter rejection of the "Wilmslow Vision"?) and instead you simply toed the party line, allowing a free for all with Developers snapping like sharks at former Green Belt/Safeguarded land. It is rather curious that you now seem to be taking a blustering stance against some out of town developers, yet have found yourself unable to answer my first question (posted in this thread on the 19th Oct, in case you are having difficulty finding it).
You could simply have supported the amendment and the Plan would thus have been approved, leaving the status of the land unchanged.
The full details of the special meeting to discuss the Local Plan can be found on the CEC website: http://bit.ly/1DlRiwX
Your electorate can read it in full and decide if they think it was "stupid".
Your obvious inability to read a post is worrying. Of course I was referring to Gladman, and then you introduce Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all. The proposal is by Gladman, although every developer is attempting, at the local plan inquiry, to have their sites included by the Inspector. That is how the local plan process works: developers propose and Inspectors tend to dispose.
It is completely untrue to say that if the amendment had been supported the plan would have passed. A crucial part of the plan is the Handforth East site, and to have voted that out of the plan would have left a gap in the number of houses being offered to the Inspector. Your amendment would have put pressure on the Inquiry to include the Alderley Edge sites. Why on earth would I have supported such an amendment?
The best way to protect green belt land around Alderley Edge is to support the local plan which has discounted both the land at Ryleys Farm and the land at Beech Road; my concern is Alderley Edge, and I know you want me to protect your area, but that is for your elected Councillors to fight. I have a view on the rest of the plan, but my first responsibility is to protect the boundaries of AE.
Facts: You have a stated conflict with local developer(s), you have a voting record of pro building, Gladman Developments has a history of entertaining local elected representatives.
Do you believe in this scenario the electorate should not ask questions of the councillors involved?
You said in this thread on the 18th October:
"A Local Plan process is the examination of the Council submission, and Developers will have had quite a few attempts at trying to get their sites included in the planning approval system.
As a final push, they employ top flight Barristers to come and pummel the Council Officers trying to get their sites included. Indeed they have submitted so many pleas to have their clients land included, that the Inspector had to adjourn the process in order to absorb the lengthy submissions. ...
Shame on those local groups who are led by the nose to the trough. "
If you follow this link: http://bit.ly/1Fnq5gZ
You will read "A document submitted on behalf of Jones Homes, Redrow Homes, Royal London Asset Management and The Tatton Estate states that "the concerns in respect of the process of plan preparation are serious and substantial".
You rightly proclaim outrage about Gladman (Head Office Congleton) but say nothing about the other four local Developers who have brought the very costly action against CEC which has stalled the adoption of the Local Plan, thereby allowing more speculative building proposals.
On the 14th of October, in this thread you said :
"I am extremely disappointed that such a substantial and speculative proposal could have been in the pipeline as a proposal without any notice from Cheshire East to the local Councillor, and I will be taking this up with the Chief Legal Officer immediately to find out what communications have actually taken place between paid officers and or elected members and the movers of this proposal."
Could you update us on that please?
You should get your facts right. I am not now, nor ever have been, on any planning committee at Cheshire East. I was not on any main planning Committee at Macclesfield Borough, and when an occasional application was submitted for Emerson in Alderley Edge, I declared an interest and left the room.
I have no idea who Gladman are, and I have no knowledge of how they operate. You asked me a question and I gave you a reply. You seem not to be happy about it, but that is your problem, not mine.
My understanding is that the Chief Spatial Planning Officer has written to Gladden to point out that their blurb is incorrect in referring to Alderney Edge as a Key Service Centre, and that the proposal was indeed just speculative.
For the sake of clarity (and as you have alluded to it above) could you please tell us what the "interest" was that prevented you from participating in discussion of the application submitted by Emerson Developments?
I have asked the question several times before and not yet received the courtesy of a response, so I don't mind if you address me as "Brough" or (as before) "Harmless Wee Man" or whatever....... I would just appreciate a straight answer to a straight question
You said to me, in this thread: "Your obvious inability to read a post is worrying" yet you still have failed to answer my very simple original question; perhaps it it you who is having an understanding difficulty? I cannot imagine why that might be, however, perhaps by your continuing obfuscation you actually say more than if you answered the question directly?
You claim to have no idea who Gladman are but I'm fairly sure that none of us know know who Gladden (sic) are.
You ask me to check my facts:
I have not once said you were on a planning committee at Cheshire East or Macclesfield.
I said you have a stated conflict with a local developer which you agreed, FACT CORRECT
I said you have a voting record of pro building, you did not refute and the comment by Pete Taylor confirms you did vote in this manner on the local plan – FACT CORRECT
Gladman Developments has a history of entertaining local elected representatives; reported in the Sunday Times – FACT CORRECT
So facts checked and without a churlish response.
Thank you for your confirmation that when Emerson is involved you declared an interest and left the room.
Why did you vote on the Local Plan when Emerson are one of the key beneficiaries? In your own words you should have declared an interest and left the room. Instead you voted in a way which was beneficial to Emerson!
Secondly, Emerson are developing the Festival Hall. Yet again you are deeply involved, where is your code of conduct here?
Finally, we all know your involvement with the Heyes Lane Car Park plans, you have repeatedly said on this forum for over 2 years the two are linked and yet again with the proposed builders being Emerson.
As I heard two ladies in The Yard talking – there is too much that adds up!
Seems strange when the Councillor is so quick to stick the boot in - in his normal charming and debonair manner of course.
Its the same on the sister website, Wilmslow.co.uk. Cllr Menlove loves the photo opportunities, the free PR, but never engages with the site. Cllr Barton does on rare occasions, have a say, but very rarely.
And the reason is clear, statements are fully traceable and archived, and have to be accounted for. Cllr Keegan has gone quite because his recent statements on the linking of the allotments and the hall have been found out, and as for Cllr Menlove, well after the Lymm Green fiasco, all I can say is he has some neck even trying to run for Wilmslow Parish Council.