ALL the parish councils in the South of Warrington have agreed to unite to fight the borough council’s proposals to allow the building of about 6,000 new homes on Green Belt land.
A working party representing the seven councils – Appleton, Grappenhall and Thelwall, Hatton, Lymm, Stockton Heath, Stretton and Walton – has already met twice this year.
Chairman Cllr Cliff Taylor, of Grappenhall and Thelwall Parish Council, said: “We have agreed to unite on this issue and to prepare for battle.”
It was in July last year that the borough council issued its “Preferred Development Option” – a precursor to the Local Plan.
It proposed taking a large part of South Warrington out of the Green Belt and to allow the building of about 6,000 homes over a 20-year period.
The public consultation which followed revealed deep seated anger among residents.
All seven parish councils opposed the proposals and there were more than 4,000 responses from members of the public and local organisations.
Cllr Taylor said: “There was enormous public anger at the proposals themselves and also at the unsatisfactory way in which the consultation was handled, with a deadline that was too tight and with queues forming to view the proposals. The borough council now intends to issue an amended plan, which is expected in the autumn or winter.
“When the revised plan is issued for consultation, we will have a fully-briefed professional planning consultant already in place and ready to argue our case.
“The existing Green Belt was only put in place by the borough council itself in 2015 and the united parish councils have already prepared a brief for the consultant with the objective of defending the Green Belt as it stands today.
“The consultation made it very clear that our Green Belt is highly valued by the people of South Warrington. We all know that if it goes, it will be gone for ever. That is simply unacceptable.
“If the borough council decides to push ahead with its original proposals in spite of the feelings of residents, we are determined to be in a position to defend the Green Belt to the very best of our ability”.
Homes England land at Grappenhall Heys
Seven parish councils unite to fight Green Belt housing
66 Comments
6 Comments
What a load of old rubbish! These Lib Dem majority councils are just trying to score political points! Cliff Taylor says “It was in July last year that the borough council issued its “Preferred Development Option” – a precursor to the Local Plan.” Yes, but it was in November 2016 that an ALL PARTY Devolution Task Group voted to bid for the ‘New Cities’ programme and rather than fix the parts of the current local plan to produce a whole new plan with massively increased housing numbers! They are nothing but hypocrites! They must think we are all completely stupid -also,- preparing to fight in the Autumn – when it will be all too late – they know too well that once ‘New Cities’ is set as the core of the plan then the housing numbers cannot be decreased later. They might think they will score political points but this ridiculous play acting is more likely to result in them being wiped out for good! Misleading the public in this way is devious and deceitful!
Could we leave politics out of this please. It’s my understanding, but no doubt I’ll be corrected if wrong, that the New Cities programme is nothing to do with the PDO per se and one isn’t dependent on the other.
The New Cities programme is I believe the way of obtaining additional central government money for local initiiatives BUT it is predicated on there being a combined Chester, Cheshire East/West and Warrington combined authority with an elected Mayor for the combined authority in order for that to happen.
The PDO is not dependent on any of that and is a WBC controlled process only and as far as I’m aware a New Cities plan – assuming one is ever agreed is not, can not, nor will not be the ‘core’ of any PDO.
Hello CHAOS, you obviously have absolutely no idea whatsoever what is going on and clearly haven’t even been bothered to read at least the basic information re the PDO on WBC’s own website! So why would you bother to comment? You request that “we leave politics out of this” – how could that be possible when a political party group (Lib Dems) are trying to take advantage of people’s distress for nothing other than party political point scoring! As I said earlier it is devious and deceitful! Utterly disgraceful behaviour from those who are supposed to be our elected representatives. ALL the major political parties have been working closely together to force this mass development upon us – now Lib Dems are saying they are ‘fighting it! How can they on one hand vote for it then claim to be against it? They are purposefully misleading the public and so too are the other political party groups. They probably think that objectors will be distracted by this pathetic pantomime leaving them free to progress their egoistical aims. That won’t happen.
You have no idea how much I read about the PDO and indeed submitted so I’ll thank you to not tell me how much I know. Suffice to say I spent many many hours putting together arguments to support my multi page objection to the PDO.
I am not a member of any party so have no axe to grind but you are simply mistaken to connect anything concerned with the New Cities combined authority initiative with the PDO. But you seem to want to demonstrate your ignorance of the matter. I’ve no idea where you get the idea that ‘all the major parties have been working together to force a PDO upon us. That really is a conspiracy theory too far. Blimey they can’t even work together on much more trivial stuff so why you think they’ve been sitting together to conjure up the draft PDO totally defeats me.
No, the PDO has been drive by the Council Executive and I probably don’t need to remind you who sits on that Committee,
All I know and observe is that at least a concerted effort is now coming together, funded partly by parish councils and partly by private fund raising to be able to obtain professional input to the PDO process, so don’t knock it.
Rather than carping from the sidelines what’s your solution?
CHAOS – oh dear! your last post only demonstrates how totally confused you are.
“New Cities combined authority initiative” ???? The WARRINGTON New Cities bid is Warrington’s bid for funding mass development in Warrington. By the “combined authority initiative” I presume you are referring to the proposed combined authorities Devolution proposals. You think the PDO is not directly linked with these? You say; I’ve no idea where you get the idea that ‘all the major parties have been working together to force a PDO upon us. That really is a conspiracy theory too far.” I think before you post any further comments you should educate yourself a little on the matter – here is a link for the ALL PARTY Devolution Task and Finish Group – try reading through these documents;
https://www.warrington.gov.uk/downloads/download/2708/warrington_devolution
After reading these you will understand how intricately linked the Devolution bid, the Warrington New Cities bid and PDO actually are. Also in the minutes you will find the names of those involved in the decision.
Dear SHA it’s been a long time since I’ve seen such a negative diatribe – instead of telling us all how despicable these parish councils are please give us the answer oh great one ? It would seem obvious that only you know the real agenda … so please share the real answer and help us all out ?