Plan for thousands of new homes is not approved
A U-TURN on Stockport’s highly controversial green belt plans now looks certain after councillors refused to approve them at their latest meeting.
Members of all parties agreed last week that they would block their part of the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework unless it is radically scaled back.
Even the town hall’s leader Alex Ganotis, who was part of the team that drew up the proposals, says that unless they change he ‘probably won’t support them’.
The combined authority’s spatial framework aims to build 227,000 new homes across the region within the next 20 years, including on green belt.
Stockport’s part of the plan has been particularly contentious, as it includes several huge sites on green belt in High Lane, Cheadle, Woodford and Heald Green that would between them take more than 10,000 homes.
That has caused uproar not only among opposition councillors and the public but within the council’s ruling Labour group.
Local Liberal Democrats want Stockport council to withdraw from the strategy altogether - but Labour and the Conservatives voted that down, arguing some kind of development framework was still needed.
But they agreed that unless the current one was radically altered they would not be able to support it, admitting a ‘revised and more acceptable plan must emerge’ following the public outcry.
Council leader Alex Ganotis, who himself sits on the region’s combined authority that drew up the draft framework, told members: “If we pull out of the GMSF, the developers will come circling like vultures. Pulling out now would be suicide.
“I’m not naive. I know the current proposals have caused outrage.
“If these proposals do not change, I know this council won’t approve them. If they don’t change at all, I probably won’t support them either.”
Liberal Democrat councillors dubbed the process so far a ‘shambles’, however, and demanded for a second time that Stockport withdraw from it altogether.
Lib Dem leader Iain Roberts said the framework as it stands would lead to ‘urban sprawl’, destroying the green belt - and would put huge pressure on infrastructure and lead to traffic chaos.
The Conservatives, who tabled an amendment to the Lib Dem’s motion, sided with the ruling Labour group, however, saying that the masterplan needed changing rather than scrapping altogether.