New relief road plan to get the green light?
PLANS for a new £30m road to ease congestion in Stockport and Cheshire - and link up with the forthcoming Manchester Airport Relief Road - have been recommended for approval.
The 3km Poynton Relief Road will connect with the £229m A6 Manchester Airport Relief Road, the biggest project of its kind in the country.
It is hoped it will help connect east Cheshire better to Greater Manchester.
Proposals for the single carriageway, first mooted decades ago, have finally gone before planning bosses this week.
Blueprints were submitted jointly by Cheshire East and Stockport councils last year after extensive consultation. They were due to be considered by planning chiefs in Cheshire last night (Tuesday) shortly after the Express went to press.
It is aimed at boosting transport links to Macclesfield and cutting traffic through Poynton as part of the wider South East Manchester Multi-Modal Scheme, a plan to improve transport problems on the south east side of Greater Manchester.
The Poynton relief road will link up with the 10km airport relief road, currently under construction between Hazel Grove and the airport.
The route will run under the A5149 Chester Road in Stockport, across the Woodford aerodrome runway, and past Adlington Business Park before connecting to a new roundabout junction to the west of the Travelodge.
Links from that roundabout will allow the relief road to connect into the A523 London Road and Adlington Golf Centre.
The scheme also includes improvements to the junction with the A523 London Road, including Adlington crossroads and Bonis Hall Lane junctions.
Construction will take 14 months and could start as early as 2018.
There has been some controversy surrounding the scheme as it will encroach on the green belt.
Officers, who have recommended the plans for approval, say that the plans would represent ‘inappropriate development’ on protected land, but that with a package of mitigation and construction conditions, harm to the green belt can be reduced to ‘acceptable levels.’
Earlier papers read: “Poynton suffers from long-standing traffic congestion issues, largely due to the high level of demand for travel from areas in Cheshire east to Manchester and Stockport.
“This has resulted in a range of negative impacts on the environment including air quality, noise levels and damage to the physical infrastructure.
“The north of Cheshire east, in particular Macclesfield, suffers from poor connectivity with neighbouring towns such as Stockport and economic centres such as Manchester Airport and in the wider region.”