War of words erupts around 250-home Stockport Green Belt plan
Stockport Council’s Conservative group has accused the ruling Lib Dems of “inviting chaos” to Bramhall after plans for hundreds of homes on 30 acres of protected land emerged this week.
The jibe has prompted the council’s leader to hit back, reminding the Tories that they voted with the Lib Dems to pull out of the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework, a decision that – combined with elevated local housing targets and an out of date local plan – has left the borough vulnerable to Green Belt development.
Jones Homes is preparing a planning application for 250 homes – half of which would be affordable – immediately north of the Manchester Airport Eastern Link Road and east of Hall Moss Lane.
The scheme is located within the Green Belt. However, without a demonstrable five-year housing land supply or an up-to-date local plan, the council could be powerless to stop it.
The site would be accessed via Hall Moss Road and feature a linear park and upgrades to existing green space. Stantec is advising Jones Homes on its plans.
Local Conservative councillor Peter Crossen is unhappy about the scheme and blasted the authority’s leadership for opening the door to more development in the area.
“I am deeply concerned that the Liberal Democrat-led council has invited chaos across Bramhall, Cheadle Hulme, and Woodford due to its delays and failure to present a local plan on housing for the borough,” he said.
Jones Homes’ scheme, coupled with other developments in the area – including Redrow’s 750-home Woodford scheme – “signal disaster for residents”, Crossen said.
“Residents of our ward have been and continue to be more than hospitable when it comes to new homes in our area but there comes a time where we need to pause and ask is Bramhall South & Woodford being asked to take more than its fair share of the borough housing targets?”
Stockport’s Green Belt is currently vulnerable to speculative development given the council’s housing land supply shortage. Last week, the council opted to approve plans for 78 Green Belt homes, recognising that it would be difficult to defend any subsequent appeal.
The planning committee’s chair said he recognised the “discomfort” among some members but added: “We need to recognise the fact that our housing land supply is now at 1.77 years [below the five-year expected by the government]. In planning terms that is a very significantly weighted issue.”
Cllr Mark Hunter, Leader of the council and of the Liberal Democrat Group, said the Conservatives should look closer to home for the reasons for the delay in devising an up-to-date local plan.
“Local Conservatives are, once again, hitting out at the Liberal Democrats without letting the facts get in the way of a good rant,” he said.
“They know perfectly well that the only reason our local plan for Stockport has been delayed is because of significant policy shifts by the last Conservative government, and now the current Labour government, which have forced a rethink.”
He added that work to resolve the situation was ongoing.
“Only this week we have sent a private letter from group leaders to the Secretary of State, seeking clarity on the latest official guidance so that we can make progress. Stockport Council is ready, willing, and able to finalise and launch its statutory local plan consultation just as soon as we get the green light from central government.
“To suggest anything else is entirely disingenuous. Sadly, it seems to be a fact of political life in Stockport that Conservatives will always carp and criticise from the sidelines while Liberal Democrats get on with the job.”
The need for an up-to-date Stockport local plan intensified in 2020 when the council’s Lib Dem and Conservative councillors voted together to pull out of the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework due to concerns about Green Belt release.
Hunter said he would make “no apology” for wanting to protect the Green Belt.
“We have always recognised the need for new homes, but they must be the right homes in the right places,” he said. “Central government targets should never trump local decision making.”
New homes in places people want to live. What’s wrong with that……
By ALL
I’m sorry Stockport… you’ve made this bed, now lie in it.
By Anonymous
Can a single councillor amount to a political group?
By Anonymous
What a mess Stockport MBC is in. This is farmland in the Green Belt and has always been such. Talk about loss of control of planning policy. No strategy whatsoever has led to a developer free for all changing the face of what was a semi rural area forever. All the in fighting between woeful politicians trying to blame each other is playing out to the detriment of the established local communities they supposedly serve. Shameful
By Anonymous
Ahh, so that’s what the markings on the adjoining A555 cycle path were for! There was me thinking that someone was finally sorting out the massive water run-off issue from the adjoining fields by putting in appropriate drainage rather than letting the water run across the cycle path and down the embankment into the A555 drainage system just above the now often flooded Hall Bank Road underpass. Maybe a housing estate with appropriate drainage might at least sort that out.
By Bramhallresident
Who can afford these houses its all over the country..Not everyone is in well paid jobs but no affordable homes..financial crisis don’t think so.
By Patrick
The “we are against Places for Everyone” T-shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my T-shirt
By Anonymous
They didn’t want to build on green belt, so left the spacial framework, which means they must now build on green belt. I mean, that’s what devolution is for, isn’t it? Surely the local demos will rejoice at this.
By Anonymous
I hope the “Oldham 31” are following this!!!
By Anonymous
Stockport have a greenbelt assessment document on their website from last year (when they published a draft local plan and all sorts of accompanying evidence but then pulled it because of the new NPPF). It suggests this site is grey belt, so if they do ever bring a local plan forward again this site might well be in it regardless of this planning application.
By Anonymous
The ‘right homes’ just happens to always be none and the ‘right place’ elsewhere.
By Anonymous
Handforth Garden Village, Woodford extension, Bloor homes extension , Hunters Parking,Heald Green, Gatley golf club. Build baby built, then Flood baby Flood!
By RobertT
The chickens are coming home to roost in Stockport. Oldham you are next unless you get back in the Places for Everyone initiative.
By Anonymous
The Spiderman meme where hes pointing at himself leaps to mind. Both parties stuck the knife in and are now blaming each other for the result.
By Watcherzero
At least the proposal could be an opportunity to address the Council’s incompetence with the A555 design and ensure the section of the A555 at the Hall Moss cutting no longer turns in to a canal at the first sight of drizzle.
By T.D. Smith
What a shambles
By Anonymous
250 homes – haIf of which wiII be affordabIe has to be a good thing in this area sureIy ?? 125 AffordabIe homes in this Iocation – get it buiIt!!
By David SIeath
Even when the article says ‘half will be affordable housing’ a commentor says there will be ‘no affordable housing’!
By UnaPlanner
Cant wait for the development to commence more home are desperately needed
By Bramhall resident
A few weeks ago the Towns Rivers flooded & many mill flats were damaged. What does that tell you? Greater Manchester’s too wet. Remember it’s ‘History’ of cloth & hatting as it needed the rivers for spinning. Also a house would subside down bog land no matter how much you firm it.
By Evie
I assume the other half of the development is ‘unaffordable’ ;-).
Time to use a description that is more meaningful.
By Phil
Pot … kettle …. black (that’s the LidDems and Tories). What a shower they are.
By Peter Black
it’s all got out of control by planning depts! these builders idea of affordable housing is a joke and Peter Crossen is absolutely right ! the infrastructure in this area will NOT support the number of new housing developments! the drainage and sewage systems are victorian and the flooding is getting worse, the traffic is at a virtual standstill at peak times and it took my carer 25 minutes to travel from Torkington lights to Chester Road! just a few yards but that is time she doesn’t get paid for and leave many service users waiting for the help they need and let’s face an ambulance has no chance of getting through! too many immigrants in hotels are not helping the situation either as there’s no housing for them never mind all our people living on the streets! none of these problems are being addressed and I’m saddened to see what was once a beautiful place to live with a great local community all gone !!
By sue Fergusson
Everyone going on about affordable housing…you do realise that only equates to an 80% discount, don’t you? So if the market value of the houses is 400k, then houses discounted to 320k count as affordable. Good luck buying your £300,000 affordable home!
By Miranda
Affordable housing in an area that has one of the highest council tax banding ???? Bramhall also does not have the schools to cope with this amount of extra housing. Families will be left to bicker over where their children will be schooled. The roads will around this area is always a bottleneck at school time. The focus will be £££ and brown envelopes . To push this through is and will be an absolute joke.
Plenty of areas ur examples I.e former Chelllwood brickwork and tip at adswood. At least will
Brown field not prime green belt farmland.
By Anonymous
Miranda, that’s not how affordable housing works in Stockport. Take a look at the affordable housing pages on their website where they set the prices. I imagine at least 50% of the affordable will be for social rent too.
By Anonymous
Anonymous at 9.01am 21st Feb raises an interesting point – they are pointing to Stockport Council’s “Transfer Values for Affordable Homes” policy. As the Council don’t have an up to date Local Plan, don’t have a 5 year land supply for housing along with the fact that this policy was introduced by the Council without being tested at Public Inquiry it is entirely possible that this scheme (and others) can make the case for this policy to be discarded and national rules apply instead of local (untested) policy. The combination of the new NPPF and leaving Places for Everyone could really impact on the Transfer Values for Affordable Homes policy in Stockport. Are you watching Oldham!!!
By Anonymous
Mark Hunter couldn’t run a tap. Stockport pulled out of GMSF because its politicians were too scared to admit to voters it needed to allocate a few sites for housing on green belt. Now it is a free for all and it will end up with twice as many homes on green field and green belt sites than what it would have had if it had grasped the nettle when it needed to.
By Mr T
This is why we in the UK can get nothing done, as every proposal is surrounded by polarist political fighting. The politicians are incapable of collaboration, which is essential if we’re going to get anywhere.
I hate losing any green areas, but I’m also a realist, and we desperately need sites like this to go ahead, and with proper planning and conditions put on the developer, the main concerns can be alleviated.
By Anon
Anonymous February 21, 2025 at 9:01am, Miranda is actually kind of correct. There is a bit more to it than this, but typically “affordable housing” is defined as 80% of either market rent or market sale.
By Anon
The pot and kettle Conservatives in Stockport have a short memory of what they did alongside the Lib Dems in pulling out of GMSF. To now blame the Lib Dem leadership makes them look like they’re lost in the woods with the weasels. Of course the developers are going to target the higher value areas first. Pull your finger out and get on with your Local Plan and stop the petty politicking.
By Drummond Bass
One solution is to rid councillors of planning decisions. They are too myopic and small-minded to have that kind of power. Major planning decisions should be made on the GMCA level – not by parochial local councillors who are only in it for themselves.
By Anonymous
Insufficient infrastructure including poor access. The traffic will be even more chao. . It comes as no surprise however that plans for housing on this land is now being proposed and very unlikely given the area that it will include affordable housing for the average ftbuyer.
By Anonymous
You need to develop your English skills
By @Anon 11:55am