Council delays crunch decision on masterplan
ROCHDALE council postponed Wednesday night’s crunch vote on the controversial Greater Manchester Spatial Framework.
It came after it emerged the long-term development masterplan is unlikely to be approved in Stockport after crisis talks failed.
Local leaders issued a statement conceding that negotiations in the borough appeared to have come to the end of the road.
Rochdale council’s cabinet approved the blueprint last week and it was expected to pass at Wednesday’s full council meeting, despite strong opposition from the Conservative and Lib Dem groups.
But the plan needs the approval of every council in Greater Manchester if it is to survive in its intended form as a region-wide strategy.
With uncertainty surrounding the project, Rochdale has opted to delay its vote until Stockport councillors make their final decision next Thursday (Dec 3).
The Rochdale vote will now take place at the next full council meeting on December 16.
While campaigners continue to oppose plans to develop on greenfield sites across the borough, council leader Allen Brett says the GMSF is essential for the future prosperity of the borough - and would ultimately save more green belt from developers.
He said: “The GMSF is an absolute game changer for our borough, creating 11,000 new jobs and 10,500 new homes for the benefit of our residents.
“With the devastation caused by the coronavirus, and yet more to come, this plan is more important now than ever and it would have formed a vital part of our efforts to bring our economy back from the brink and support thousands of livelihoods.
“What the spatial framework also does is enable us to drive through major and long overdue improvements to our transport network, like the extension of the Metrolink to Heywood and Middleton, levelling up Greater Manchester’s economy and spreading the prosperity evenly across the south and north of the city region.”
Coun John Blundell, cabinet member for a thriving economy added: “We’ve developed a number of brownfield sites across the borough over the years and secured more than £10m in external funding over the last year alone to deliver hundreds more new homes on brownfield sites.
“We’ve also reduced the proportion of green belt take in the plan to just 2.5 per cent. But the fact is, we simply cannot deliver the homes and jobs our borough needs without using some greenbelt sites.
“Make no mistake, without the spatial framework, we will still need to deliver these homes, but we won’t have the protection of having a properly thought out plan, so developers can simply pick off prime greenbelt sites and win on appeal if we refuse them. Without an up to date plan, we could end up losing control of what gets built in our own borough.”
Coun Blundell also took a swipe at Lib Dem and Conservative councillors in Stockport, saying their opposition to the GMSF was ‘ironic’ given the borough is ‘one of the biggest beneficiaries’.
He added: “They will need to release more green belt land for more homes than are in this current plan and are likely to get sites cherry picked by developers if they do reject it.
“Let’s hope they make the right decision for Stockport and Greater Manchester. It should be a no brainer.”
But Rochdale’s Conservative group leader Ashley Dearnley said he hoped the postponement was a precursor to the plan also being rejected in its entirety.
He said: “I’m disappointed because I would have hoped that, this evening - after the wonderful campaigns from all the green belt groups members would have listened and we would have voted out of the GMSF once and for all.
“The plan is not fit for purpose, it’s outdated in light of Covid and in light of Brexit and senior councillors need to listen to the concerns of local residents and protect the green belt.”
Coun Dearnley added that there were plenty of opportunities for brownfield development - one of which could now be the Wheatsheaf Shopping Centre, the closure of which was announced this week.
Lib Dem leader Andy Kelly said the postponement came as ‘no surprise’ - but queried what would happen should Stockport reject the GMSF next week.
“Surely we won’t be voting on it at all until plans are redrawn?” he said.
“The time has come for this administration to take stock and really listen to what local people are saying and how they really feel about this scheme. I have never known a bigger public reaction to what the council are doing than this framework.
“Maybe 2021 is time to go back to the drawing board for Greater Manchesterlook at what housing we really need instead of relying on outdated 2014 population figures, assess what impact Covid-19 has had on office use, home working and a possible recession, and factor whatever impact the EU exit deal has.”
Coun Kelly also stressed the need to protect the environment and remember that climate change remained the huge challenge that climate change poses.
He added: “The Lib Dems in Rochdale remain opposed to the current plans for these and many other reasons, if we end up voting on the 16th, then we will be voting against the proposals.”
The next Rochdale full council meeting will be held at on Wednesday, December 16 at 6pm.