Stockport faces another housing appeal after members ignored officers

Another waste of Council Tax Payers money.

Stockport yet again going to be letting their tax payers down! Disastrous for them to leave PfE (GMSF) in the first place. And by doing that, they have set themselves up for failure. Expect to see a lot of appeals in Stockport now and can pretty much guarantee they will all get overturned in favour of the developers and also awarded costs! Stockport Council should be ashamed.

There’s currently no open space there – it’s a private golf club not accessible to local residents. The proposal will create 26 acres of public space which we will be able to access. Seems like a no-brainer if it’s all about open space – get it built. The reality is it’s not about the open space, it’s about the local councillors pandering to the NIMBYS.

I wonder if the Council could decide to not contest this, would it save a lot of time and money!
If officers recommend approval, do they have to go against their own advice to run a defence of the appeal?

It is not all about open space it is also the impact on the local community and surrounding infrastructure . Styal road was a country lane not fit for the amount of traffic currently using it let alone circa 600 more cars trying to access it from tiny side roads . Not to mention the effect on doctors surgeries and schools . Very ill thought out and driven by greed !

Never underestimate the power of the dog walkers’ vote. Absolute waste of my Council Tax fighting cases like this. Pull out of the GMSF then reap what you sow.

Whatever happened to planning where developments had to be in-keeping with surrounding properties? The 50% inclusion of social housing changes the total demographic of the area. The new Bloor Homes estate on Wilmslow Rd is having real difficulties integrating the private and social communities. This development does nothing to maintain local standards.

I’m usually against green belt development, but Stockport planning performance is abysmal and they deserve to lose with costs. No housing supply, no local plan and no prospect of one either. But I’m sure they will blame someone else.

The fact that it will cost the Authority will not concern the Members that rejected this application. They want to be able to say to an electorate (consisted in part by NIMBY’s) “We voted against this, you can trust us to support your views”.

Until Members are presented with hard figures on a year by year basis on what their poor decision making costs and then informed what services/budgets have had to be cut to make up for this and then it all reported on to the Electorate will we see change.

I live in the centre of Stockport near the Town hall. There’s a lot of development going on here including flats, and soon there will be almost 500 more flats on the site of the old Stockport college. The council seem happy ramming as many flats into town centre brownfield sites without thinking about the burden this puts on already stretched services like schools and hospitals.
Not everybody wants to live in a flat, so the council should be pleased to have a new estate of detached and semi detached houses built.
If there was a boom in building this kind of property then people couldn’t sell their house for as much as they do now and housing would become more affordable.
Hopefully now Stockport town centre is saturated with new homes the council will allow building on other areas

I won’t be last person to point out that having a successful urban regeneration strategy underway in Stockport will eventually create more not less pressure to develop suburban and greenfield.

Hmm. I might see what odds the bookies are giving on this decision.

Far too many commenting mindlessly about Stockport’s decision to pull out of the Labour-led GMSF which offered nothing but green belt build in nice areas of the borough where Labour had very few votes and no Councillors.

Those who say Stockport should be in the PfE replacement scheme need to look at the massive Godley Green green belt development in Tameside which is going ahead in spite of almost universal local opposition, and would suggest you’re no better in than out.

The provision of affordable housing is paramount !!

This looks like a well thought out, sensitive scheme with definite benefits to the local community. It could benefit from the addition of a children’s playground but other than that, this looks great. Counsellors, please stop dilly dallying with red tape and allow a good quality scheme to be built! Pushing this back again will inevitably end up in a worse scheme being built by a greedy developer, over-developing the land when your hands are tied!

We do need more affordable homes,it’s ok for the people that can afford to live we’re they are but it’s selfish people like that ,that makes others homeless,lm currently looking for somewhere I can afford, the waiting list for a council house is ridiculous, the building will go ahead because they always win .

Debated this development with numerous people on several platforms. The ridiculous campaign of “Save Gatley Golf Club” promoted by vote seeking councillors and supported by deluded followers. Will the same councillors be held to account for the extraordinary expense that will be incurred when the appeal to develop the land will succeed…NO. Will the deluded followers cover the expense along with the rest of taxpayers…YES!

AltPov, Stockport council is in a mess with planning policy, pulling out of the GMSF was a politically motivated stupid decisions. As part of the GMSF both Salford and Manchester would have taken some of Stockports house building quota therefore alleviating pressure on the green belt in the borough which is now up for grabs.

This was referred by planning to highways.
The site is used by the public as and when golf is not beimg played.
The land was gifted to the golf club and the members have took ownership and are trying to sell it to line their own pockets

This site has no direct access to any main highway, development will lead to local surface flooding in the area.

Nimbyism in its finest form in the comments. The golf course was/is private. It will go through now, no doubt. Rayner the MP for Ashton and Ibiza will see it does.

@September 02, 2024 at 6:20 pm
By AltPoV

Fair points. Plus I’ve heard that the seperate cycle lanes are proposed to be taken out of Godley Green.

If Stockport MBC are happy to not be part of ‘PfE’, that’s up to them as a democratically elected council.

However, I can’t get worked up on this application – it’s probably a better use of land and does retain some green space for everyone.

Why on earth would the council try build much needed homes? They should arrest the officer suggesting building homes is viable. I’m a landlord of 22 properties, I need the income from high rent.

This SMBC rejection sets the precedent to overturn the developable designation for Peel Moat Open Space on the same basis..ratio of open and green space to residents known generically as the 6 acre rule

It’s all very well building all these houses but where are all the services coming from Hazel Grove is already chocker block with cars You can’t walk on the pavement for cars

It’s only disused as HSL advised the appeal would be more successful if the golf club ceased trading. There are public footpaths adjacent to the land which allows access from one side of Heald Green to the other and also to Gatley through the Golf club. If 26 acres will be retained as public open space that would only leave 18 acres of land to build 278 houses on. You can build 5 average size houses per 1 acre of land which would mean approximately 90 houses not 278. The sums don’t add up here? The 26 acres includes a park which they will open up an access point from the land. This park is not owned by Gatley Golf Club but they have somehow included it in the retention of the 26 acres of public open space. How can they use this park to dupe people into thinking they are not using all the available land?

See all the local residents piling on to defend the decision. It won’t stop it from going ahead – oh and you’ll be paying for it through legal fees and awards costs.