Simone, I have lived in Marple for just short of 40 years and I have been, and I still am, an active member of it clubs, societies, groups, and “Friends of…”. I do admit that I very rarely use its pubs, cafes or shops.
There is no “plan”, just a draft and, yes, many people, myself included were not aware of this draft until Cllrs Blair and Dowse called a public meeting. The draft was published this October, not two years ago.
As far as the effect of public response is concerned, the first step taken by many people was to contact AGMA, SMBC and the other local authorities and complain about the length and timing of the consultation with a successful result. Also the public consultation on A6MARR (SEMMS) resulted in several changes to those plans.
Given your lack of success with assumptions I am not surprised to learn that Belly is not a planning officer and, by the way, it is MARPLE not MAPLE. Don’t worry, you will get used to it.
Are the quotas imposed by the government? Given the quantity of information on GMSF on the internet (somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 pages I would think) it is difficult to cover every angle but the OAHN was established by AGMA (Strategic Options Background Paper 3). The projections published by the Department for Communities and Local Government are no more than a starting point. Projections from Oxford Economics and the use of Edge Analytics Popgroup software seem to have played a major part in the calculations.
I was very pleased to read that Sue Ingham voted against the LibDem amendment. She obviously meant what she said when she made a public commitment to working with other parties on this issue. I wouldn’t know Lisa Smart from Eve if I met her but I don’t think she was present to make that commitment in which case she is free to turn this into the usual point scoring exercise which we all dislike so much.
Opposing this plan and recognising the need for housing are not mutually exclusive and we do need to look at the bigger picture. I have so far found no reference in the draft plan or supporting documentation relating to UK immigration. Between 2002 and 2015 the UK welcomed 7,323,000 migrants (University of Oxford Population Watch) . Between 2001 and 2015 the population of Stockport increased by 2,275. Why then a projected increase of 27,687 in the period to 2035, particularly taking into account the anticipated drastic reduction in immigration? The current people per household in Stockport is 2.32pph. Why then assume a pph of 1.43 in future planning?
The answer could be the emphasis that is being placed on HS2 and “Northern Powerhouse”. HS2 still plods along but it is remains under attack, recently from those (including an infrastructure financier) promoting the case for diverting the funds to BML2 in the south east. In just the last couple of months Bristol, Bath, Oxford, and Hull have all seen the plans for electrification of their railways scrapped.
“Northern Powerhouse” remains little more than a vision, and a weaker vision since the removal of George Osborne from office and the recent resignation of Lord Neill of Gatley. The people of the Irish Republic had a vision in the middle of the last decade and that ended in hundreds of hectares of half built houses standing in fields of weeds.
Turning to High Lane and my reference to “a threat to the wellbeing of the people of Marple and High Lane”; the first thing that comes to mind is traffic. The development could put another 6,000 cars onto our local roads, plus the additional commercial traffic to be associated with a development of this size. Planning for a High Lane/Disley bypass started in 1970 and was abandoned in 1996. Since 1970 traffic on the A6 must have increased manyfold and it is soon to take the additional traffic resulting from SEMMS. Estimates of the likely increase range from 13% to 30% and there is to be negligible mitigation. Increases in traffic along Windlehurst Road and Hibbert Lane from both GMSF and SEMMS are likely to exceed the increase that might have resulted from the building of a supermarket in Hibbert Road.
The new development is likely to block the only route for an A6 bypass and I see no solution for the A6 traffic problems. There are other traffic related issues such as air pollution which is already significant.
Then there is infrastructure. The tram/ train is a “prerequisite” which should mean that it has to be in place before the development. One of the problems is that it would not give the access to Stockport that is needed (assuming it is routed via Rose Hill). In theory it could be routed via Middlewood and Hazel Grove but the operational problems on that route would probably be prohibitive.
What about Stepping Hill? I haven’t been following its fortunes lately but no doubt it is suffering the same problems as the rest of our bloated health service. High Lane is not the only GMSF major development that would increase its workload and then there was the recent scare about Macclesfield running down its services and referring A & E to Stepping Hill.
There are other points in posts on this thread that are well worthy of consideration and debate. I could go on and on, my submission is many times the length of this post, but I wont.
