BIG PICTURE
FURTHER to your articles in the Express on
February 3 the Civic Society are very concerned at the approach taken by Messrs Robinsons and Bellway Homes to their obligations in relation to highway improvements (which are much needed) at Broken Cross.
They seek to discharge a condition which requires no dwellings to be occupied until highway improvements (installation of traffic lights) at the Broken Cross junction are completed.
Similar restrictions were imposed on other developers in the area, namely Jones Homes and Redrow.
We believe it would be inequitable for the condition to be discharged as other developers would have to bear the burden to part fund the improvement scheme. If granted the other two developers would be entitled to seek to have their respective conditions removed and the prospective improvements to the highways at Broken Cross would not be achieved in phase with the developments.
Until an agreed scheme is in prospect no developer should have the conditions removed.
We suggest that Cheshire East Council seeks negotiations with the three developers as a matter of urgency otherwise critical elements of the Local Plan Strategy are at risk.
The arguments of Robinsons and Bellway that their scheme would have no material impact on the highways situation misses the point - it is the cumulative impact that is critical.
We urge Cheshire East to stand firm in this case. Keith Smith chairman,
Macclesfield Civic Society
HUNTING FOR ‘OLD MACC’S’
I AM currently trying to collect a full set of the ‘Old Macc’ Magazine which was published in the 1990s and was sold in and around the Macclesfield area.
I have made purchases from eBay and the Macclesfield Indoor Market but unfortunately it is now proving increasingly difficult to locate the outstanding copies in order to complete my collection.
I was wondering if any of the Macclesfield Express readers could help me out?
I still looking for good clean copies of numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, 20, 29 and 35 and of course, would be willing to pay for them.
Please contact me at r. fox@me.com.
Rebecca Fox-Partridge via email
WHERE IS POTENTIAL?
I RECALL from the Macclesfield hustings in December 2019 that
David Rutley MP was asked questions about the government’s preparations for Brexit and how business and jobs would be affected in Macclesfield.
Several times he repeated a phrase popular among Conservative election candidates, ‘we will unleash our potential’.
He promised the sunny uplands that his government would negotiate for us in a comprehensive trade deal that would cut red tape and bring more jobs and prosperity.
He was absolutely confident that a Conservative government would prioritise small business and that any negotiated deal would bring unlimited benefits once we were out of the EU. Now that the negotiations have led to the passing of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, for which he voted on 30 December, I would be very grateful if he would address the current situation in his regular column in this newspaper.
What should businesses like Cheshire Cheese Company do in the face of the government’s failure to prioritise a solution to the red tape on exports, entirely foreseeable, which have left the CEO, Simon Spurrell faced with an overnight 20 per cent sales loss and red tape such as a £180 health certificate on retail orders to the EU, even on his cheese parcels worth £25 to £30?
Cheshire Cheese Co was planning to double staff numbers in Macclesfield with a £1m investment in a new distribution centre.
Mr Spurrell will now re-locate it to France to save his business, with the loss of all of these jobs, the potential jobs and the investment in Macclesfield.
We now hear that
British business exporters are being ‘encouraged by government trade advisers to set up separate companies inside the EU in order to get around extra charges, paperwork and taxes resulting from Brexit’.
Please tell us Mr Rutley how is this ‘unleashing our potential’?
Judy Snowball
Vice chair, Macclesfield North Labour
RESHAPE EDUCATION
I AM firmly of the opinion that we will never be going back to ‘normal’, instead we have a chance, if we take it, to go back to a ‘new normal’.
Even at this moment I hear some people are calling for schools to extend the teaching day to catch up
I tell you as an educationalist of proven experience that this is both unnecessary and completely counter productive.
Children, in my experience, do catch up after even more than a year of being out of education.
The ‘disadvantaged’ children can be helped with targeted assistance.
As it is, we teach children for too long, we know children learn better in short bursts of about 20 minutes.
To extend the school day will be a drain on teachers and children and in that time learning will be poorly received and attained.
We need concentrated quality teaching, not extended failing teaching.
With the above in mind my view is that we need to reshape education.
We also need to reshape public transport and rush hour travel with staggered travel and working hours and a four day week.
Wearing masks in winter needs to be a norm and more people should work from home.
If there are those who are saying that I am anti-libertarian my answer is the freedom to die before your time doesn’t seem worth fighting for.
Even if you disagree with me I urge you all to write to your MPs with your opinion, this is how a democracy thrives and combats all the terrible things we saw happening across the Atlantic in the last four years.
We have elected MPs we need to keep them on their mettle.
Frank Vigon address supplied