Plans have been unveiled today (Thursday, 30th June) for a development of up to 300 homes on Green Belt land to the south west of Alderley Edge, which were presented alongside a number of facilities to benefit the local community.
Story Homes, who have been appointed to represent the group of landowners, held a public consultation at the Festival Hall to show their plans and explain the benefits the development at Ryleys Farm could bring to the village.
Cheshire East Council has been working on the formation of a new Local Plan for some time which will shape development across the Borough up to 2030. It is obliged by Government to formulate a Plan that identifies how many houses are going to be built and how much land will be given over for employment use. As part of this process they have had to identify which parcels of land should be used.
Part Two of the Local Plan will focus on the Borough's 13 Local Service Centres (of which Alderley Edge is one), villages and rural areas.
At the Town and Parish Council Conference in May 2014 Councillor David Brown presented figures which showed that the Local Service Centres are expected to accommodate 2,500 new homes by 2030.
At that time CEC was suggesting that 258 new homes should be built in Alderley Edge between 2010 and 2030 - of these 17 had already been completed between April 2010 and December 2013 and 51 were committed - which left a requirement for a further 190 new dwellings to be built in the next 16 years. These figures may have well have changed since May 2014 though given that the overall housing requirement for the Borough has increased from 27,500 homes to 36,000 in the Local Plan.
Story Homes are promoting the land at Ryleys Farm as the most suitable location for a residential-led development which would deliver the required home along with a number of benefits for the community.
The indicative masterplan includes a village car park located south of Downsway, providing 60-70 spaces. Vehicles would access the car park via Chelford Road whilst there would also be a pedestrian access via Lydiatt Lane - making it a 0.6km walk to the high street. Adjacent to the car park there would be a new village green.
A second car park would be located behind Ryleys School providing 60 car parking spaces and 4 coach spaces.
At the top of the site they are proposing a 3 acre Habitat Area for ecological mitigation and educational purposes with 8 acres of open space below - providing netball and tennis courts, playing fields with junior turf and senior size playing fields along with a pavilion and spectator viewing.
The facilities would be available for use by the 3 village schools during the day and local sports clubs during the evening and looked after by a management company who would undertake the management of events and bookings.
The playing fields would be accessed off Ryleys Lane, to the left of the barn conversions, and the car park would also provide a designated pick-up and drop-off area for school children. Access to the playing fields from Sutton Road would be for pedestrians and cyclists only.
The proposal is to build 100 homes on 10 acres north of Chelford Road and 200 on 20 acres south of it, which Story Homes would like to see allocated in Part Two of the Local Plan, which they expect the public to be consulted on in July or August this year.
These homes would be surrounded by 35 acres of safeguarded land, which is land safeguarded for development after 2030, which Story Homes say they don't invisage coming forward unless there is a need for further housing after the period of the Local Plan. Then south of the safeguarded land is a 28 acre Community Amenity Area.
Rosie Peniston, Strategic Planner at Story Homes, said "We see this as a community park but we want to hear the views of the public on what they would like to see, it may be they want more sports facilities."
This takes the site up to Pearsons tomato farm, with the exception of one field which is not in their client's ownership, which they are proposing to build a new access for that would run close to the western boundary of the site in line with the bypass. This would enable the HGVs which currently access the tomato farm from Chorley Hall Lane and Blackshaw Lane to do so via a new road off Chelford Road, close to where it passes over the bypass.
Additionally, Story Homes are proposing a new entrance and car park for the cemetery, as that land also lies within the ownership of their group of landlords, and move the start of the 30mph zone out to just prior to the cemetery to create a new, safer entrance to the village.
If Story Homes are granted permission to build 300 homes then 90 would need to be affordable homes which would be prioritised for people who have a connection with Alderley Edge, i.e. have children going to school in the village, family living here or they are members of a local sports club or church.
The affordable homes would be a mixture of social rented homes which would be managed by a registered provider and intermediate housing which would be split between discount to market value and shared equity homes.
Rosie Peniston told me "Currently Cheshire East Council operate a policy of 30% discount on market value but we still don't think that is affordable in Alderley Edge so we would look to negotiate with Cheshire East to reduce the proportion of social rented homes and increase the discount to market value on intermediate housing to 50-60%. So for example a 2 bedroom property worth £300,000 would cost £150,000 which is far more palatable for people to afford.
"We would also look to put a covenant on the title deeds so that at the point of sale they cannot sell at market value, they would need to remain affordable housing."
The next stage of the process is that Story Homes will provide feedback from the public consultation to the Parish Council, Cheshire East Council, key stakeholders and to alderleyedge.com for publication. They will then make a representation for the Local Plan Part Two consultation.
Story Homes cannot submit a planning application for Ryleys Farm until the adoption of the Local Plan Part Two, which is not expected to happen until September 2019, and the realignment of the Green Belt.
Rosie Peniston, Strategic Planner at Story Homes, explained "If we cannot release all of the land from the Green Belt then we cannot deliver everything on the plan because of the costs so we would have to work on a pro-rata basis."
The indicative masterplan presented at the Festival Hall on Thursday, 30th June, has apparently been altered quite a bit from their initial ideas as a result of two key stakeholder events held in September 2015 and April 2016. These were attended by representatives from the three village schools, local sports clubs, Pearsons tomato farm, the Rotary Club and Edge Association.
Please do share your views on these proposals via the comment box below.
If you could not attend the public consultation but would like to provide feedback to Story Homes on their proposals then you can also do this by clicking here.
Comments
Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.
Was it worth going to or just some tosh that building new houses, bringing more cars and overloading the stretched village will actually be good for us all?
Please do a story of where we can object officially and when.
Traffic congestion is already a serious issue, particularly at school pick-up and drop-off times. The Story Homes representative I spoke to yesterday said that the development would include plans to improve this. I told him I don't know how, as the current and previous Parish Councils have been unable to find a long-term workable solution. Where are Story Homes going to magic up a solution to this? I'm afraid this sounds like hot air to me.
A car park offering 60-70 new spaces more than half a mile from the village really does nothing to solve the existing parking problems when there are an additional 300 homes adding to the issue. Even if each house has only one car each (which we all know is unrealistic) that increases traffic in and around the village to a point where, as Beverley points out above, we will 'enjoy' daily gridlocks.
Sadly, given the number of formal objections to the horrific 'Party Warford' proposals and the fact that the objections have been completely ignored by the Northern Planning Committee who have recommended approval of the plans, I am not optimistic for the future preservation of this village. Nor am I convinced by Story Homes' apparent concern for the issues raised. Let's face it, this is a profit generating exercise for a developer from outside of the region, who thinks of Alderley Edge and sees pound signs in front of their eyes and a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
300 Nr homes is in the first phase up to 2030 and then the ‘’35 acres of safeguarded land, which is land safeguarded for development after 2030’’ will then also be developed, we could presume for housing and similar amenities.
This article states that ‘’The proposal is to build 100 homes on 10 acres north of Chelford Road and 200 on 20 acres south of it’’ or 300 homes in total in 30 acres, using simple maths 300 homes divided by 30 acres multiplied by 35 acres equals a potential 350 Nr houses for the ‘’safeguarded land’’ after 2030.
The scheme for Alderley Edge could (should?) therefore be promoted as 650 Nr plus homes for the village – it would be interesting to know how such a number compares with the actual number of properties in the village today.
With the removal of the Green Belt designation and the allocation of "Safeguarded land" for development, as pointed out by Chris Harper, it would enable not just 300 but hundreds more apartments and houses to be proposed on the site in future.
Despite the assurances by Story Homes that the location provides a "sustainable" solution to housing needs in the village, even a child can see that building hundreds of homes and apartments off Ryleys lane/Chelford Rd will lead to massively increased car use and traffic coming through the village at peak times (with associated noise, congestion, air pollution Co2 emissions etc. as well as the loss of large areas of habitat within the Green Belt).
As the article in the link in Pete Taylor's comment above shows, in the SHLAA (carried out by Cheshire East in 2012) the land at Ryleys Farm has been identified as suitable for 1,460 houses and apartments (subject to a change of Green Belt).
Therefore if the proposals by Story Homes are approved, and the Green Belt designation changed, it is very likely that 300 homes will be just the "thin end of the wedge" that would lead to more development and a massive increase in traffic congestion and demands on services, which would have a detrimental affect on the lives of everyone in the village.
According to the information presented by Story Homes there are 2,754 homes
already within Alderley Edge. Thus the additional 650 homes that Chris
calculates would equate to an increase of over 25% on the current numbers.
An increase of 25% of the Village's population is more than 1,300 people.
And this does not take into account any residential development proposed for
other sites.
To be able to exercise influence on any future developments and to protect
green spaces in and around the Village it would appear that there is an
urgent need to develop a Neighbourhood Plan that shows what level of housing
growth is desirable and acceptable for the Village. According to the Parish
Council's Newsletter there is an open meeting at the Festival Hall on Weds
6th July for all those who are interested in knowing more about the
Neighbourhood Plan process.
(Unfortunately for football fans the timing clashes with the Wales v
Portugal semi final..!)
From what I can see there will be no public transport provision and the estate will be built in the usual form that presupposes car use only. Looks completely unsustainable to me.