Tameside signs off funds for 2,350-home garden village

The council has agreed a funding deal with Homes England to bring forward the opening stages of Godley Green garden village, set to bring nearly 2,500 houses to the borough.

With a funding agreement now signed off by the council, work on the garden village is in line to begin in early 2021, with construction of the first homes getting under way that summer.

The Godley Green garden village will be near Hattersley, taking in Green Belt land to the north of Mottram Old Road. The development forms part of the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework, which is yet to be adopted following a series of delays.

At a meeting earlier this week, the council agreed to draw down £10m from the Government’s Housing Infrastructure Fund to deliver the opening phases of the garden village, including infrastructure works.

Under a timeline set out as part of the funding, a developer or housebuilder will be picked in May 2020, with an outline planning application for the whole site to following in November that year.

Agreements with landowners, or compulsory purchase powers, will need to be in place early next year to allow development to ahead.

Following this, the council will begin the first infrastructure works in January 2021, with construction of the first homes getting under way by the end of June.

The whole 2,350-home scheme is due to complete in 2038. Of the nearly 2,500 homes to be delivered, 30% of these will be designated for affordable tenures.

Like many garden villages, Godley Green has proved to be controversial, with a number of local campaign groups signalling their objections. The decision to draw down funding from the HIF is a show of support from Tameside Council, while the area’s MP, Andrew Gwynne, has also signalled that he backs the development.

Delays to the GMSF do not look to have scuppered the development; a draft of the framework was published in January this year, outlining Green Belt release and a plan to build a minimum of 201,000 new homes across Greater Manchester’s 10 boroughs, alongside 65m sq ft of employment space; a consultation on the plans followed soon after.

However, the latest delay, reported by Place North West this summer and confirmed last month, rules out any final form of the framework coming forward before next year’s Mayoral elections, taking place in May 2020; the GMCA’s revised timescale points to a further round of public consultation in summer 2020.