Handforth Garden Village tipped to progress
Cheshire East Council will meet next week to discuss the 300-acre scheme, which proposes the creation of 1,500 homes and around 245,000 sq ft of employment space.
Engine of the North, the Chesire East Council’s development company, is leading on the Handforth Garden Village proposals.
As well as 1,500 homes, the scheme features a primary and secondary school, sports facilities, 175 elderly care residential units, a village hall, and space for self-build homes.
The plans also contain 116 acres of open space and just under 30 acres of employment land.
The development is one of 14 garden village projects selected by the Government in 2017 to boost housing numbers across the country.
Plans for Handforth Garden Village, to be developed on land east of Ainslie Way and south of the Manchester Airport Eastern Link Road, were first lodged in May 2019.
Almost four years on, officers have recommended the development should be approved.
Approval would be granted subject to securing more than £30m of Section 106 contributions from the developer towards to local highways, education and healthcare.
Engine of the North is seeking outline consent for the built elements of the scheme and full consent for preliminary infrastructure works to prepare the site for redevelopment.
To learn more about the proposals, search for application reference number 19/0623M on Cheshire East Council’s planning portal.
Frost Planning, IBI, E*Scape Urbanists and PGA Landscape Architecture make up the project team.
116 acres open space. versus the 300 acres which are existing, so a loss of 184 acres of green open environment. Plus more traffic onto the already overstretched A34. Any bus routes??
By Stanley Green
This is brilliant news, the area is perfect for development and it’s wonderful there will be more family homes available, which is so desperately needed! There’s space, close to the bypass which can handle the traffic, it’s close to facilities and it’s in a desirable area. I just hope this spurs on the expansion of the retail parks into the areas next to Pets at Home / Next and between Arkle Avenue and Earl Road. I am just waiting now for the home owning NIMBYs who don’t realise this leads to people achieving their dream of owning a home themselves to start moaning though…
By MC
Destruction of green belt and clogging up an already congested A34 :’-(
By UNESCO rep
If this scheme doesn’t introduce more east-west grade-separated crossings of the A34, it will be a transport failure. There is an existing crossing, Spath Lane, to the north, that requires an upgrade. But there are no crossings of Ainslie Way, and there is also no footway or cycleway alongside it (despite it having tonnes of room on the verge). If the council doesn’t insist on improvements like this, they are locking car dependency in from the start and any environmental bragging they make should be laughed at.
By Local person who cycles
Garden City = low-density car-dependent boxes with no facilities next to a congested trunk road. There is another way to provide decent, sustainabke homes, but the development industry just wants the easiest greenfield sites and maximum profits.
By Peter
Walked around yesterday and counted 114 Oak Trees, I guess that they will put them all in a “Tree Museum” as MC says perfect for Tory donor developers making lots of money in “not leafy Cheshire” when there are 1700 acres in Salford that they wont touch, as always profit before people
By Plenty of brownfield sites in Salford
Good. Nice to see new development coming forward that will allow younger people to achieve their home owning dreams that the grey brigade want to dash by pulling up the drawbridge behind them. Green Belt is a policy designation not some recognition of irreplaceable beauty and significance.
By Roger Bacon
Notice another tired comment about brownfield in Salford. Looks to me like Salford making pretty good use of its brownfield, and that’s the point. What happens when all these 20 and 30 something apartment dwellers want to start families and want a house and garden. These greenfield sites close to the city are exactly where houses should go, close to transit and services, not catapulted out beyond the greenbelt.
By Rich X
Salford is building towers and bending over backwards in ways that other local authorities and communities can’t even comprehend. All whilst maintaining a status of being one of the greenest places in the UK.
Sling it elsewhere. You want the suburban dream, you’re getting it, along with everyone else.
By Anonymous
It looks reasonably planned to me. Close to Handforth station, and with real investment on a walking and cycle route to the station (new bridge with accessible ramps). That’s not a bad starting point.
Unforgivable, however, is this from the design and access statement:
” GSHPs are viable for site but there are more feasible options due to
unknown ground conditions and systems are expensive.
• SHP and/or NIBE units have been discounted as heating and hot
water will predominantly be provided by mains gas. ”
Building gas-fired new homes really shouldn’t be accepted in this day and age. Fossil fuels are on their way out. Heat pumps work great in modern insulated homes. It’s a no brainer.
By W