WARRINGTON needs to provide land for about 24,000 new homes over the next 20 years – 9,000 of which would have to be in the Green Belt.
Land will also be needed to provide employment – which 252 hectares needed in Green Belt areas and 129 hectares in existing urban areas.
Town Hall chiefs will be asked next Monday, July 10, to approve the borough’s Local Plan Preferred Development Option, which sets out the council’s approach to meeting the borough’s need for homes and jobs up to 2037.
The preferred option identifies four main areas of growth – dubbed the City Centre, the Waterfront, the Garden City Suburb and the South West Urban Extension.
Together, these areas form a comprehensive plan to secure the wider infrastructure required to address existing congestion, unlock major brownfield development sites and support the growth of Warrington as a whole.
Borough council leader Cllr Terry O’Neill, said: “Warrington’s Local Plan is crucial in guiding our growth and development over the next 20 years, supporting our New City aspirations and ensuring we deliver the housing, business, jobs and infrastructure the borough needs.
“These proposals are the result of months of careful and considered planning, with a focus on delivering a sustainable future for Warrington.
“The vast majority of sites which have been put forward by developers are Green Belt sites. However, we have worked hard on not compromising the Green Belt and I believe this is reflected in the proposals. Most of the proposed sites are in urban areas, while the vast majority of our Green Belt will be saved and maintained for the next 30 years.
“At the same time, we recognise that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us to capture the value uplift of undeveloped land and ensure this is invested in the infrastructure for the future of our borough.”
The preferred Development Option identifies:
“City Centre”
The town centre and inner parts of Warrington continue to be the main development focus. It will deliver around 3,500 homes in its core, 200,000 sq.m of new business floor space and a range of improved shopping and leisure opportunities. This will be supported by improved public realm, accessibility, and road and public transport connections
Warrington Waterfront
The Waterfront is identified as a major development opportunity to deliver around 4,000 new homes, a new secondary school, primary school and country park. It will open up Port Warrington, which will become one of the most important employment areas in the North West region. The Port will provide a key distribution centre of around 200,000 sq.m. for freight from the Ship Canal.
Garden City Suburb
The south eastern extension of Warrington will create a new Garden City Suburb, providing the potential development of around 7,000 new homes to be delivered over the full 20 years of the Plan. The suburb will also provide a major new employment area. The Garden City Suburb would be focused on local garden neighbourhoods centred around a new district centre and a new country park. The local neighbourhoods will provide new primary schools and local community facilities with the district centre providing a new secondary school, shops, health, sports and recreation facilities. Walking, cycling and public transport linkages would connect these neighbourhoods to their local and district centres, and to the rest of Warrington.
South Western Warrington Urban Extension
The south western urban extension will provide an urban extension of around 1,800 homes based around a new primary school and local centre, with the form of development dependent on the final location of the Western Link.
The Preferred Development option also sets out the number of homes the Council considers can be accommodated by each of the following Green Belt areas:Lymm – 500 homes; Culcheth – 300 homes; Burtonwood – 150 homes; Winwick – 90 homes; Croft – 60 homes; Glazebury – 50 homes; Hollins Green – 40 homes. Specific sites will be confirmed at the next stage of the process.
Under National Planning Policy Framework requirements, Green Belt can only be released under “very special circumstances”. Warrington’s Preferred Development Options – which will unlock strategic infrastructure, address existing issues of congestion, and improve the quality of community facilitates for existing and future residents – would meet these requirements.
If approved by the executive board, a comprehensive, eight-week, public consultation on the preferred development option will begin on Tuesday, July 18. The council will take on board consultation responses in working up the formal version of the Local Plan, which it is anticipated will be published in February next year.
As part of the consultation, seven residents events would be delivered, in different parts of the borough, to give local people to get information, have their say and ask questions. All would take place as follows:
Thursday July 20- Winwick Leisure Centre, 4pm to 8pm
Tuesday July 25 – Bridgewater High School, Lower Hall site, 3pm to 8pm
Tuesday August 1 – Village Hotel, 3pm to 8pm
Wednesday August 9 – Birchwood Leisure Centre, 3pm to 8pm
Monday August 14 – Penketh High School, 3pm to 8pm
Tuesday August22 – Lymm Village Hall, 3pm to 8pm
Thursday September 7 – Pyramid Centre , 3pm to 8pm
Full details of the Preferred Development Option and the consultation events are available on the council’s web site www.warrington.gov.uk
5 Comments
I may be being naive but I can’t see where the evidence for the need for 9000 new homes is coming from – they are building on every square inch of Warrington at the moment (and WBC is seemingly on a mission to rid the town of all trees and wildlife habitat) yet we have some of the worst air quality / highest pollution levels in the country (which the trees they are allowing developers to clear – Omega is one of the worst examples of woodland being felled). Yet Burtonwood is strangely immune from any development and the council can’t provide a decent service to the existing homes never mind 9000 new ones (i.e. charging for green bin collection, reduced black bin collections, constantly pleading poverty, unable to provide social care) – they can’t have it all ways and a stronger case is needed for this green belt building which once gone is gone forever.
The plan certainly leaves a lot of questions unanswered. The is supposed to be a need for 9,000 homes in the Green Belt but the council has apparently identified land for less than 1,200. Where are the other 8,000 to go?
And if we have had months of careful planning, why can’t specific sites be identified now rather than in the next stage of the process.
It would be a good idea to make a passable attempt at sorting out our unfit for purpose infrastructure, BEFORE embarking on yet another favourite/favoured developer spree. Previous such sprees have restricted the infrastructure improvements options now available.
Considering how unpopular these mass expansion proposals are, one might wonder how long the ‘Town Hall Chiefs’ will remain Town Hall Chiefs?
A majority of ‘Independent’ councillors, with no great aspirations for ‘City’ status might be ‘the preferred option’ for the people of Warrington.
Our council can’t even sort out our road surfaces and traffic problems now so what hope have we got when they start devastating our green belt land. We purchased our 1950 home within a village overlooking green belt land after being assured by WBC planning departments that there was no chance that this land would be developed in the future. Now 7years later we have the threat of not only houses but shops and a school. We are very unhappy about the lies we were told.