Stockport residents have just a week left to speak out and protect our local green belt. There is now less than one week to go before the end of the public consultation on the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework (GMSF) which closes on the 16th January.
The GMSF is the Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s plans for the management of land for housing, commercial and industrial use over the next 20 years. In its current draft form it proposes the release of up to 9% of Stockport’s greenbelt, to make way for large scale housing developments, with 8,000 homes planned around Cheadle and a further 4,000 homes on fields around the village of High Lane.
In my own submission to the GMSF consultation, which was submitted this week and is published on my website, I argued that whilst we recognise the urgent need for new homes, brownfield land that has previously been used for commercial or industrial purposes, is more suitable for house building and should be prioritised for development. These sites are closer to the urban centres, retain the countryside, boost regeneration, and ease transport pressure.
There are many such brownfield sites available now right across Greater Manchester yet the GMSF seeks to carve out great chunks of the green belt now. If we make sites in the green belt available now, the volume house builders will develop these first, and then they will come back for more green belt land before they even look at urban land. Therefore the opportunity for real regeneration in Stockport, and other Greater Manchester towns, will be lost for a generation.
I am therefore encouraging residents who share these concerns to make a submission, however brief, to the consultation process. For further information on the consultation, to view and download the following documents please visit https://www.greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk/info/20081/draft_plan. You have until the 16th January, let’s send strong message to those responsible for GMSF to protect the green belt.
For many months now I have been fighting to protect our greenbelt and campaigning for a re-think of these plans. In the final weeks before Christmas I organised a debate in the House of Commons raising concerns about the Framework, and also presented a petition to the House of Commons, calling to avoid including large-scale residential development on the green belt in Stockport and across Greater Manchester, after it gained over 3,900 signatures. The voices from not only my own, but neighbouring constituencies, is clear, with thousands of people agreeing with me that the green belt should be protected. My petition however is still open and I am delighted that over the New Year period we passed the 4,000 landmark. Local residents who want to support me in this campaign can continue sign up at http://williamwraggmp.wixsite.com/protectourgreenbelt