Northern Group tables 200-home Secret Lake proposal
Plans for hundreds of homes on a 12-acre site that lies partly in Stockport and partly in Manchester have been lodged with both councils.
Northern Group announced its intention last year to redevelop a site in Reddish around what is known locally as the Secret Lake.
The scheme would deliver 62 two-bed houses, three-bed houses, and 91 apartments – 58 with one bedroom and 33 with two – while “responding sensitively to the site’s distinctive landscape character”, according to a planning statement prepared by Eden Planning.
Northern Group has committed to providing half of the homes on affordable tenures.
There has been a degree of pushback against the proposals due to a perception in some quarters that the site, which can be accessed via the Fallowfield Loop of the footpath off Sandfold Lane, is a community asset.
Eden’s planning statement states that conversations with local people during an earlier consultation found that the area is “widely perceived as unsafe and unwelcoming”.
To learn more about the project, search for reference number DC/096894 on Stockport Council’s planning portal.
“The site’s distinctive landscape character” – it is a lake and thick woodland. No one in their right mind would consider it for development.
By Bash the Housebuilder!
This really looks to my eyes to be a hard no. The ecological/biodiversity function that area must do must set the standard extremely high, despite housing demand. Development would be much better directed to the extremely messy development to the west off Sandfold Lane or elsewhere in Stockport (including low functioning Green Belt).
I do find the ‘widely perceived as unsafe and welcoming’ meaning ‘lets build a development here’ not really linked. Somewhere can be made safe and welcoming with improved lighting etc.
By Anonymous