Local plan scoping consultation

I am writing to formally object to the inclusion and assessment of the 291.03-hectare land submission around Ashley within the Cheshire East Strategic Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment (SHELAA) and the ongoing Local Plan review, comprising 12 contiguous sites.

The scale of development contemplated is fundamentally inappropriate for Ashley. In particular, I believe insufficient weight has been given to the existing highway and cyclist safety problems on the rural road network and the very substantial worsening of those problems that large-scale residential development would inevitably cause.

1. Serious Danger to Cyclists and Existing Road Safety Concerns

Popular and heavily used cycling route: The lanes through and surrounding Ashley form a very popular cycling route, used extensively by recreational and more serious cyclists. Their rural character, proximity to Hale, Altrincham, Knutsford and the wider Cheshire countryside, and connectivity with other country lanes make them particularly attractive to cyclists.

Existing danger to cyclists: These roads are already hazardous at current traffic levels. Much of the network consists of narrow rural lanes with limited visibility, bends, restricted verges and insufficient space for vehicles to pass cyclists safely. There is little or no dedicated cycling infrastructure and, in many locations, cyclists and motor vehicles are forced to share a constrained carriageway.

Recent accidents demonstrate that this is not a theoretical concern: The existing level of vehicle traffic is already creating serious safety concerns, as demonstrated by recent accidents in the area. The roads were simply not designed to accommodate large volumes of modern traffic while simultaneously serving as a major recreational cycling route.

Development would materially increase the risk: A development of anything approaching the scale represented by these 12 sites would generate a substantial and permanent increase in vehicle movements. This would inevitably lead to more frequent encounters between cars, delivery vehicles and cyclists on roads where there is often inadequate room for them to pass safely.

The Council should therefore consider not merely whether additional vehicles can technically be accommodated on the highway network, but whether introducing potentially thousands of additional daily vehicle movements would unacceptably increase the risk of serious injury to cyclists and other vulnerable road users.

This issue alone weighs heavily against allocating the land for strategic-scale development. Development should not be permitted where its foreseeable consequence is to make an already constrained and demonstrably hazardous rural road network materially more dangerous.

2. Conflict with Spatial Strategy & Sustainable Settlement Hierarchy

Ashley is categorised at the lowest tier under Policy PG 2 of the Cheshire East Local Plan Strategy. It lacks the infrastructure required to sustain major housing growth, including adequate school capacity, healthcare facilities, employment opportunities and high-frequency public transport.

Promoting major development in such a rural location is fundamentally inconsistent with the principles of sustainable development and the established settlement hierarchy.

3. Incompatibility with Green Belt Policy

The entire parish of Ashley carries a Green Belt designation. Ashley also performs a particularly important strategic function as part of the narrow countryside buffer separating Greater Manchester, including Hale and Altrincham, from Cheshire East settlements including Mobberley and Knutsford.

Large-scale development would represent substantial encroachment into open countryside and undermine the Green Belt's fundamental purposes of checking urban sprawl and preventing neighbouring settlements from merging.

The productive, open farmland in this area plainly contributes to these Green Belt purposes and should not simply be regarded as land capable of release for development.

4. Inadequate Transport Infrastructure and Severe Highway Constraints

Ashley station cannot reasonably be regarded as a high-capacity public transport hub. Services are limited, making it unrealistic to suggest that a major new residential population would principally rely upon rail rather than private cars.

The surrounding highway network consists overwhelmingly of rural roads and lanes, with numerous physical bottlenecks including narrow bridges over the railway, the River Bollin and smaller watercourses such as Birkin Brook.

These are not roads capable of straightforward widening or upgrading without fundamentally changing the rural character of the area.

Consequently, substantial residential development would generate additional traffic on roads that are already constrained, compounding congestion and — most importantly — exacerbating the cyclist and general road-safety problems identified above.

5. Loss of Best and Most Versatile Agricultural Land

The submission includes substantial areas of Grade 2 and Subgrade 3a Best and Most Versatile agricultural land.

This is productive farmland forming a substantial contiguous agricultural landscape. At a time when food security and protection of high-quality agricultural land are increasingly important considerations, development should be directed towards brownfield and lower-quality land before land of this nature is permanently lost.

6. Environmental, Landscape and Heritage Harm

Development on this scale would fundamentally alter the rural character of Ashley and its surrounding countryside.

It would affect the landscape setting of the Bollin Valley and Parklands Local Landscape Designation and the Rostherne/Tatton Park landscape, disrupt wildlife corridors and potentially affect sensitive habitats including Cotterill Clough.

The area also contains numerous listed buildings and heritage assets, including Ashley Hall, whose significance derives not merely from the structures themselves but from their historic rural setting.

A development approaching 291 hectares could not realistically be absorbed into this landscape without fundamentally changing its character.

7. Drainage, Flooding and Utility Infrastructure

The area also faces significant infrastructure constraints relating to foul sewerage, electricity capacity and surface-water drainage.

Large-scale development would create substantial additional pressure within the River Bollin catchment and potentially increase surface-water flooding.

The scale of infrastructure required to support development of this magnitude itself demonstrates why Ashley is an unsuitable location for strategic housing growth.

Conclusion and Formal Request

The 291.03-hectare proposal, comprising 12 adjoining sites, is fundamentally unsuitable for strategic-scale development.

Of particular concern is the immediate and foreseeable impact on road safety. Ashley's narrow rural lanes are already extensively used by cyclists and are already hazardous at existing traffic levels. Recent accidents underline those concerns. Introducing the volume of additional traffic associated with major residential development would significantly increase the conflict between vehicles and vulnerable road users and make an already difficult situation materially worse.

This is in addition to the proposal's conflict with the settlement hierarchy and Green Belt objectives, inadequate transport infrastructure, loss of high-quality agricultural land, environmental and heritage harm, and serious drainage and utility constraints.

I therefore formally request that Cheshire East Council classify all 12 submissions within this 291.03-hectare site as Unsuitable, Unavailable and Undeliverable in the SHELAA assessment and exclude them from future Local Plan allocations.

Jason Zemmel

I am writing to formally object to the inclusion and assessment of the 291.03-hectare land submission around Ashley within the Cheshire East Strategic Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment (SHELAA) and the ongoing Local Plan review, comprising 12 contiguous sites.
The scale of development contemplated is fundamentally inappropriate for Ashley. In particular, I believe insufficient weight has been given to the existing highway and cyclist safety problems on the rural road network and the very substantial worsening of those problems that large-scale residential development would inevitably cause.
1. Serious Danger to Cyclists and Existing Road Safety Concerns
Popular and heavily used cycling route: The lanes through and surrounding Ashley form a very popular cycling route, used extensively by recreational and more serious cyclists. Their rural character, proximity to Hale, Altrincham, Knutsford and the wider Cheshire countryside, and connectivity with other country lanes make them particularly attractive to cyclists.
Existing danger to cyclists: These roads are already hazardous at current traffic levels. Much of the network consists of narrow rural lanes with limited visibility, bends, restricted verges and insufficient space for vehicles to pass cyclists safely. There is little or no dedicated cycling infrastructure and, in many locations, cyclists and motor vehicles are forced to share a constrained carriageway.
Recent accidents demonstrate that this is not a theoretical concern: The existing level of vehicle traffic is already creating serious safety concerns, as demonstrated by recent accidents in the area. The roads were simply not designed to accommodate large volumes of modern traffic while simultaneously serving as a major recreational cycling route.
Development would materially increase the risk: A development of anything approaching the scale represented by these 12 sites would generate a substantial and permanent increase in vehicle movements. This would inevitably lead to more frequent encounters between cars, delivery vehicles and cyclists on roads where there is often inadequate room for them to pass safely.
The Council should therefore consider not merely whether additional vehicles can technically be accommodated on the highway network, but whether introducing potentially thousands of additional daily vehicle movements would unacceptably increase the risk of serious injury to cyclists and other vulnerable road users.
This issue alone weighs heavily against allocating the land for strategic-scale development. Development should not be permitted where its foreseeable consequence is to make an already constrained and demonstrably hazardous rural road network materially more dangerous.
2. Conflict with Spatial Strategy & Sustainable Settlement Hierarchy
Ashley is categorised at the lowest tier under Policy PG 2 of the Cheshire East Local Plan Strategy. It lacks the infrastructure required to sustain major housing growth, including adequate school capacity, healthcare facilities, employment opportunities and high-frequency public transport.
Promoting major development in such a rural location is fundamentally inconsistent with the principles of sustainable development and the established settlement hierarchy.
3. Incompatibility with Green Belt Policy
The entire parish of Ashley carries a Green Belt designation. Ashley also performs a particularly important strategic function as part of the narrow countryside buffer separating Greater Manchester, including Hale and Altrincham, from Cheshire East settlements including Mobberley and Knutsford.
Large-scale development would represent substantial encroachment into open countryside and undermine the Green Belt's fundamental purposes of checking urban sprawl and preventing neighbouring settlements from merging.
The productive, open farmland in this area plainly contributes to these Green Belt purposes and should not simply be regarded as land capable of release for development.
4. Inadequate Transport Infrastructure and Severe Highway Constraints
Ashley station cannot reasonably be regarded as a high-capacity public transport hub. Services are limited, making it unrealistic to suggest that a major new residential population would principally rely upon rail rather than private cars.
The surrounding highway network consists overwhelmingly of rural roads and lanes, with numerous physical bottlenecks including narrow bridges over the railway, the River Bollin and smaller watercourses such as Birkin Brook.
These are not roads capable of straightforward widening or upgrading without fundamentally changing the rural character of the area.
Consequently, substantial residential development would generate additional traffic on roads that are already constrained, compounding congestion and — most importantly — exacerbating the cyclist and general road-safety problems identified above.
5. Loss of Best and Most Versatile Agricultural Land
The submission includes substantial areas of Grade 2 and Subgrade 3a Best and Most Versatile agricultural land.
This is productive farmland forming a substantial contiguous agricultural landscape. At a time when food security and protection of high-quality agricultural land are increasingly important considerations, development should be directed towards brownfield and lower-quality land before land of this nature is permanently lost.
6. Environmental, Landscape and Heritage Harm
Development on this scale would fundamentally alter the rural character of Ashley and its surrounding countryside.
It would affect the landscape setting of the Bollin Valley and Parklands Local Landscape Designation and the Rostherne/Tatton Park landscape, disrupt wildlife corridors and potentially affect sensitive habitats including Cotterill Clough.
The area also contains numerous listed buildings and heritage assets, including Ashley Hall, whose significance derives not merely from the structures themselves but from their historic rural setting.
A development approaching 291 hectares could not realistically be absorbed into this landscape without fundamentally changing its character.
7. Drainage, Flooding and Utility Infrastructure
The area also faces significant infrastructure constraints relating to foul sewerage, electricity capacity and surface-water drainage.
Large-scale development would create substantial additional pressure within the River Bollin catchment and potentially increase surface-water flooding.
The scale of infrastructure required to support development of this magnitude itself demonstrates why Ashley is an unsuitable location for strategic housing growth.
Conclusion and Formal Request
The 291.03-hectare proposal, comprising 12 adjoining sites, is fundamentally unsuitable for strategic-scale development.
Of particular concern is the immediate and foreseeable impact on road safety. Ashley's narrow rural lanes are already extensively used by cyclists and are already hazardous at existing traffic levels. Recent accidents underline those concerns. Introducing the volume of additional traffic associated with major residential development would significantly increase the conflict between vehicles and vulnerable road users and make an already difficult situation materially worse.
This is in addition to the proposal's conflict with the settlement hierarchy and Green Belt objectives, inadequate transport infrastructure, loss of high-quality agricultural land, environmental and heritage harm, and serious drainage and utility constraints.
I therefore formally request that Cheshire East Council classify all 12 submissions within this 291.03-hectare site as Unsuitable, Unavailable and Undeliverable in the SHELAA assessment and exclude them from future Local Plan allocations
Jason Zemmel