Local plan scoping consultation

Dear Strategic Planning Team,

I am writing as a local resident to ask Cheshire East Council to retain the Green Belt land between Blakelow Road and Buxton Old Road and not allocate it for housing in the new Local Plan.

I understand that this land has been put forward through the Call for Sites process and that this does not in itself amount to a planning application or permission. Even so, I am very concerned that land of this character is being considered for development.

This is not an objection to new housing in principle. Cheshire East clearly needs to plan responsibly for future homes. My concern is about this particular site. It is open, undeveloped Green Belt and it still performs a very clear function: it separates the existing built edge of Macclesfield from the countryside beyond.

Development here would not simply fill a gap within the existing settlement. It would move the urban edge out across an open field and permanently change the character of this part of Macclesfield. The present relationship is very clear on the ground, with established housing at the edge of the site and open land beyond it.

I have attached a photograph taken from my back garden looking directly across the site. I think it illustrates the concern particularly well. The field is open and rises towards the existing houses, with mature trees, vegetation and traditional stone boundary features forming part of an established landscape. Roads, roofs, lighting, parked vehicles and other infrastructure across that field would be highly visible and would fundamentally change what is currently an unmistakably open setting.

There are also protected mature trees immediately adjoining the land. We are, quite properly, required to seek the Council’s permission even to carry out pruning work to a protected tree because of the importance attached to its amenity value. I fully appreciate that a Tree Preservation Order and Green Belt designation are different planning protections, but it seems difficult to reconcile the care rightly taken over individual trees with the prospect of fundamentally changing the wider open landscape of which they form part.

For that reason, I believe any assessment of this site needs to consider the landscape as a whole: its openness, topography, mature trees and vegetation, ecology, visual amenity and the relationship between the existing homes and the countryside.

Before land such as this is considered for release, I would expect the Council to be satisfied that reasonable opportunities on brownfield, previously developed and suitable non-Green Belt land have genuinely been exhausted or cannot meet the identified need. The question should not simply be whether houses can physically be fitted onto the field. The question is whether there is a sufficiently strong justification for the permanent loss of Green Belt that remains open, undeveloped and visibly serves its purpose.

There is also a wider concern. Once the present boundary is crossed and the built edge moves into this field, a new boundary has to be drawn further into the countryside. That could not only change this site permanently, but also weaken the protection of adjoining land and create further pressure for development in future.

Once this field is built on, its openness is gone for good. Green Belt protection is only meaningful if land that remains open, undeveloped and clearly separates the town from the countryside is protected when development pressure arises.

For those reasons, I strongly ask that the land between Blakelow Road and Buxton Old Road remains Green Belt and is not allocated for development.

Please record this email as my formal representation to the New Local Plan Scoping Consultation.

Kind regards,

John Rushton