Residents’ fury at stable plans
RESIDENTS in Prestbury are up in arms over plans to build stables on greenbelt land.
Developers English Land Ltd want to install two loose horse boxes and a parking area in the field adjacent to Bridge Green in Prestbury, a move which, if approved, residents say could ‘endanger and irreversibly damage’ the area.
Four objections have been registered on Cheshire East Council’s website at the time of writing.
Bridge Green resident Denise Rankin listed several problems with the proposals, including the impact on wildlife and protected species in the area, the erection of buildings on a flood plain, increasing sewage problems, and ‘increased road traffic along the narrow road of Bridge Green and through the village’.
Added to this, she said, was the public footpath along the area, enjoyed by walkers, which was not a bridleway, and the possible increase in rats.
She said: “We feel the stables plan is a precursor to more houses which will destroy foraging areas for wildlife there.”
Commenting on the council planning website, Trevor Cudworth, also of Bridge Green, said interfering with flood plain land could have ‘a serious impact on streams and buildings’, adding that Bridge Green was ‘a quiet cul-de-sac unsuitable for horse box traffic’.
Catherine Kershaw, from the Green, also commented on council website. She said it was ‘a place of rare, unspoiled natural beauty that if developed would be ‘gone forever’.
A spokesman from the applicant English Land Ltd said the stables were ‘a ‘very modest and acceptable development’ and that an ‘extensive ecological and habitat assessment’ had taken place, concluding ‘the proposal would not result in harm to existing or potential wildlife’.