Local plan scoping consultation

3.4 Using the new standard method Cheshire East’s housing need gives 2,530 homes per year. The need is made up of a baseline figure based on the number of existing homes plus an increase applied to places where housing is less affordable relating to local earnings.

This sounds quite reasonable, but for a town like Macclesfield it isn’t. Four reasons:

a. The town has been wrapped in Green Belt for more than 60 years, limiting new development. This will show in higher housing costs (lower affordability). But because the town’s housing stock includes a large proportion of 19th century terraces, housing cost are lower than they would otherwise have been, because of a sub-standard housing stock, although still high because of the historical shortage.

b. Again, having been wrapped in Green Belt for 60+ years, new development has historically been directed away from Macclesfield and other Green Belt locations, to locations outside the Green Belt. This gives the locations outside the Green Belt a historically inflated number of homes, which translates into higher baseline figures. Conversely, the number of new homes in Macclesfield and other Green Belt locations has historically been curtailed, resulting in lower baseline figures. The new standard method will perpetuate this trend, like a slow chain reaction.

c. Average earnings in Macclesfield are high and the quality of its housing stock is low. This results in housing costs appearing more affordable in Macclesfield, but they are still far from affordable for lower and middle income home seekers.

d. A 1050 home development in the current local plan, SMDA, has come to nothing. The same for a smaller development nearby. The lack of housing, at any price, is causing housing to be less affordable.

In the existing Local Plan the entire CE area was termed one strategic housing market area. This resulted in housing allocations for Crewe were deemed to meet the need of Macclesfield residents. The area of CE is now split into three Travel To Work areas. Are both Housing Market Areas and TTWAs replaced by the new standard method?

It is expected that later in the plan development process, the calculations that led to the figure of 2,530 homes per year will show, for each area, how the baseline figures were increased.

5.10 At your call for sites earlier this year, as an alternative to the Adlington New Town scheme, I attempted to put forward a proposal for a New Town near Alderley Park, an existing employment area providing 5,000 jobs, just 5 miles south-west of Adlington. The Adlington scheme would create a town in search of employment whereas my Alderley Park proposal is focussed on an existing employment area in search of a town.

I call the proposal Alderley New Town. It should be one of the country’s New Towns in order for Cheshire East to be granted the necessary powers and financial muscle for site assembly. It could provide much of the affordable housing the area needs plus the many other facilities which only a town can offer. It could also provide opportunities to non-life science businesses

The proposal could be similar in size to that at Adlington, 20,000 homes. The ‘call for sites’ tools did not allow drawing a polygon big enough to illustrate this sustainable proposal and CE planners may well argue that a proposal of this size is beyond a Local Plan. I argue that it is not.

This general area is basically the former Macclesfield Borough Council area. It includes the towns of Handforth, Knutsford, Macclesfield and Wilmslow, all of which for more than 60 years have been tightly wrapped in Greater Manchester’s Green Belt. Every Local Plan produced in this timespan covering the area has seen new development severely limited, to aid the redevelopment of Manchester. 20,000 new homes near Alderley Park will only be a small compensation for what could have been.

The proposed New Town lies within the ‘Greater Manchester Green Belt’. However it makes only a limited contribution to the purposes of the Green Belt. It would have two railway stations, Alderley Edge and Chelford. The latest NPPF recommends development near these. A 400 kV line crosses the area for electricity.

Rough suggestions for boundaries for Alderley New Town are: To the south by A537 to and including Chelford (and possibly to Ollerton if required). To the north-west either by Carter Lane, A535 and A34, or Marthall Lane etc. to B5085 and then A34.To the east Alderley Edge, Nether Alderley and Alderley Park would be included and possibly Fernhill Farm.

5.16 Towns which for more than 60 years have been wrapped in a Green Belt must be given development allocations which allow them to begin catching up on the loss of development suffered during these years.

5.17 Towns which for more than 60 years have been wrapped in a Green Belt must be given development allocations which allow them to begin catching up on the loss of development suffered during these years.

5.18 Identify grey belt land, but only allocate it for development where it is favorably located in relation to existing towns and villages. Avoid isolated pockets of development away from existing development.