Plan for thousands of jobs and homes ‘not dead in water’
Pledge to press ahead despite collapse of regional deal
ROCHDALE Council has pledged to press ahead with its ambitious growth agenda after councillors in Stockport voted against the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework (GMSF) at a full council meeting last week.
In Rochdale, the GMSF proposals would create around 11,000 new jobs and 10,500 new homes and support the business case for improvements to the borough’s transport infrastructure, including the expansion of the Metrolink to Heywood and Middleton.
The plan also enables the creation of high quality new housing, in a bid to stop some residents feeling they need to leave the borough to access the kind of home and job they want.
But with the plan needing the approval of all ten
Greater Manchester councils to go forward, Stockport’s refusal to back it means the next steps are not clear.
Rochdale Council leader, Allen Brett, said: “GMSF is a historic opportunity to level up the north and south of Greater Manchester and spread the wealth and opportunities more evenly across our city region, so it’s a great shame that these wider benefits now seem to have been sacrificed at the altar of parochial party politics in Stockport.
“This plan is the right plan for Greater Manchester and for Rochdale and this failure to back it, following years of joint work across all the councils to make it happen, is disappointing.
“Our economy is growing rapidly. With our partners at Rochdale Development
Agency, we’ve successfully delivered a number of major regeneration schemes in recent years and we’ve attracted tens of millions of pounds of inward investment in the last year alone to help push forward future regeneration projects.
“But there’s a lot more to be done in Rochdale and, without the GMSF, it will be harder to deliver on major regeneration priorities for our borough, like the extension of the Metrolink to Heywood and Middleton and the creation of a new train station at Slattocks.
“This is a setback, but we’re committed to our growth plan, which includes the creation of thousands of new jobs and homes, as well as the regeneration of our borough’s town centres and the areas around our five railway stations.” Coun John Blundell, cabinet member for a thriving economy at Rochdale Council, said: “This decision is incredibly disappointing. It’s party politicking at its worst.
“It won’t stop us delivering our growth agenda, but it will delay some of this important work and make it harder to implement some of our plans. What some councillors in Stockport don’t seem to have considered is that failing to back the GMSF will also adversely impact their own residents. Partnering boroughs took on some of Stockport’s house building commitments.
“But without GMSF, those agreements fall away and Stockport will now need to build an additional 5,000 new homes to meet their housing need.”