A new sports facility is set to be created on land off Wilmslow Road.
Cheshire East Council are going to lease out the Green Belt site, opposite Ryleys playing fields, to Alderley Edge School for Girls (AESG) so it can be transformed into a sports facility for their use - as well as the use of other local schools and sports clubs.
The 8.6 acre site was originally acquired by the old Cheshire County Council as part of the Alderley Edge bypass project but was deemed surplus to requirements.
Tenders have been sought from interested parties to use the land on the basis of a 50-year lease. This includes a restricted-user clause enabling the land to be used for the purposes of a defined community or local economic benefit.
The council received five expressions of interest from local organisations and, following a selection process, Alderley Edge School for Girls was chosen as the preferred bidder. This will see a new, shared sports facility for football, hockey, tennis, netball and other sports.
It will service the needs of Alderley Edge School for Girls, Alderley United Junior Football Club and the hockey section of Alderley Edge Cricket Club. Local primary schools in Alderley Edge, Nether Alderley and Wilmslow are also set to benefit from use of the facilities.
In return, Cheshire East Council will receive an annual rent of £10,000 per annum.
Sue Goff, Headmistress at Alderley Edge School for Girls said "We are delighted to read on the Cheshire East website that we are the preferred bidder for the land and are very keen to move forwards once we receive official confirmation from them.
"We are really looking forward to collaborating with our partners in order to provide excellent sporting facilities and enhance community benefit for as many groups as possible."
Rt Hon George Osborne MP said "I've been working hard with the Alderley Edge community to get these facilities for the Alderley Edge School for Girls and local sporting clubs - and I'm delighted this has paid off."
The Council also received offers from Rotunda Living Community for a low impact and sustainable living community activity centre; from Manchester Gospel Hall Trust to provide a place of Worship to meet the needs of a faith group known as Plymouth Brethren Christian Church; Ryleys School to provide sports facilities for Ryleys School and James and Alex Stock who proposed to provide a family-oriented outdoor recreational facility featuring 2 mountain bike tracks. a café, green eco centre and bike wash area.
The details are contained in a report set to go before a meeting of the Portfolio Holder for Finance, Councillor Peter Raynes, on Monday, 7th April.
Planning permission will need to be sought to create the new multi-sports facility. If Alderley Edge School for Girls are successful in obtaining planning permission for their proposals this will enable Alderley Edge Parish Council to relocate the Heyes Lane allotments to land off Lydiat Lane, which is owned by AESG, so they can build a new car park at the Festival Hall.
Comments
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all the promises of AEGS for us giving our support for their school hall, the use of which would be offered for availability to the community at large.I can only recall one "public meeting" being held there.
This year we will be using 4 classrooms and the two major halls. During that time the staff and caretakers have been more than accomodating regarding parking on-site, which has been welcomed by the PCSO, as it relieves the pressure on parking in the village during a very busy day of the Festival.
In addition, AESG has accomodated a number of special concerts and music workshops that The Alderley Edge Festival Committee have staged both in the evenings and during the weekends. The support we have had from the school has been most welcome and long may it continue.
There are many elements to this fantastic news, for full details click the link to the Council report above, but a highly important element is that there will be a barrier between Alderley Edge and Wilmslow and the green belt will be protected, for at least 50 years.
On either side of Wilmslow Road there will be sports facilities and protected green belt.
Fantastic.
Not a bad idea, If they are planning this it would make sense that the closest end to the school become the entrance and car park. Then during the morning and afternoon drop off the girls school parents has a big safe car park which is less than 500 metres walk to school ground. Just need to make the junction crossing at Brook Lane safer. Again a School Crossing Patrol would be nice.
But at the end of the day. Double yellow lines and parking tickets don't work so why would anything else!
It shows that each physically inactive young person costs UK economy around £12,000 over their lifetime which means that the UK economy stands to take a £53 billion hit from people currently in the 11-25 age bracket.
Around £8.1 billion of these costs are directly related to spending on healthcare that will be needed to deal with the burden of Type II diabetes, chronic heart disease, stroke and colon cancer among this cohort as they age.
This equates to £1,800 in additional healthcare costs for each child and young person who is currently inactive.
The cost of reduced quality of life and lower life expectancy is even higher, at nearly £10,000 per child or young person.
This amounts to £45.2 billion across the total population of children and young people who are currently failing to meet recommended levels of activity.
Overall, girls and young women are less active with 56% failing to meet recommended activity levels compared to 39% of boys and young men.
Helping young people take up a sporting habit for life is one of the most important things we can do, so I'm 100% supportive of additional sports facilities and developing community sports clubs in our village.
"More people , more active, more often" has to be a great goal.