Sidelined Cheshire East formally opposes Adlington new town
The council will ask the government to abandon plans to create a 20,000-home settlement in the Green Belt after a cross-party motion was carried this week.
Labour councillor Fiona Wilson and the Conservative’s Mike Sewart tabled a joint motion to a full council meeting on Wednesday evening opposing the Adlington new town proposal.
The scheme, which is headed up by majority landowner Belport, was selected as one of the shortlisted new town locations in September.
The news prompted an angry reaction from local residents and campaign groups and left Cheshire East, which was unaware of the plans, feeling sidelined.
The motion criticised both Belport and the government’s new tows taskforce for a lack of public consultation.
Giving evidence before the House of Lords built environment committee the day before the council meeting, Niall Bolger, non-exec director at Belport, conceded that a government imposed non-disclosure agreement that banned the landowner from consulting with stakeholders including the council prior to the September announcement as “not helpful”.
He also acknowledged to the committee that many of the objections raised since the Adlington new town was shortlisted were “legitimate” concerns.
Cheshire East’s motion said the council “cannot ignore the fundamental flaws of the proposal or the significant opposition from the people of Adlington”.
The motion states that the proposals are “at odds with several of the government’s own planning policies” and would result in the loss of land that is valuable from an ecological standpoint.
If Cheshire East’s objection falls on deaf ears, the council has set out a list of demands to be met as the new town takes shape including the need to provide infrastructure like hospitals and schools “concurrent with the provision of any new homes”.
First the Handforth Garden Village, and then this.
Oh wait a minute, that still hasn’t happened yet.
By Ben
There’s plenty more stations on the Cheshire lines that could be suitable for this. The density around all stations in the countryside should be maximised.
By Jim
The Government need to stand firm and get cracking on this scheme. National interest before NIMBYism.
By Anonymous
This confirms why they should be pursuing other applications such as North Liverpool
By GetItBuilt!
Nimby councillors passing the buck.
By Anonymous
@Ben (December 11, 2025 at 12:52 pm)
Handforth Garden Village has planning permission and a start on site is expected in September next year. https://www.placenorthwest.co.uk/september-2026-start-for-1500-home-handforth-garden-village/
Expecting things to happen faster than that, given the complexity of some of the site specific issues being dealt with and the multi-agency approach required to overcoming some of those issues, is to be woefully ignorant of how development happens.
By Mike Stovey
I was told this week, on some good authority, that the concept of increasing the frequency of rail services is pie-in-the-sky. To do it requires more capacity up the line between Cheadle Hulme and Stockport, which you can’t achieve without either doubling the number of tracks or delivering HS2. Even 20,000 homes isn’t going to fund that scale of intervention, so the suggested reasoning why it would make a good location falls away.
By Hazel Grover
The planned development is a betrayal of the greenbelt ideal, and will hinder our access to the countryside, plus cause chaos for families, because of minimal infrastructure.
By John Wright
Correct as Handforth garden Village was the new development years ago but was scaled down in size but now I reckon it will be cancelled for this debacle..There are so many urban areas that need redevelopment for instance like Pioneer mill in Radcliffe which is now derelict and that’s just one example.
By Patrick
Need to crack on and and get building. Massive shortage of housing so drastic actions needed. Cheshire east left to own devices would get nothing done about dealing with the issue. Not a fan of labour but at least they are trying to do something about the issue.
By Anonymous
All those demanding we concrete over our countryside in a mass “build baby build” exercise need to stop and consider that we already have somewhere between 700,000 and 900,000 consented houses in the UK that developers are not currently building out. Also 3% of existing housing stock remains un-occupied. We don’t need another 1.5 million houses in this country – we just need to be smarter about how we deliver on the ground. Think baby Think
By Anonymous
Common sense prevails. New towns, yes, but Adlington is the wrong location. New towns seem to work best when built a around existing medium/large settlements not as small towns on greenbelt that lacks infrastructure of all kinds.
By Alan
The difference with this scheme and North Liverpool is simplified land ownership. Do the placemaking right and the opposition to this scheme would disappear.
By Anonymous
Absolutely disgraceful proposal. Purely about making rich developers, even richer at the expense of local people and wildlife. Scrap it
By Anonymous
State of the nation, it’s called communism and is taking place all over the North West. Of course there won’t be new towns built in the shires obviously. Chipping Norton will be okay.
By StSimon
Given the Council will have no say over this, it sounds like the meeting was a waste of time. Good opportunity for the Councillors to play politics though before the local election. I wish people would focus their energy into what they want to see out of this development rather than object, object, object. It is such a wasted opportunity.
By Anonymous
This unacceptable proposal should never be considered. Green/open spaces should remain just that. Once they are gone they are gone. We should not be so self centred.
How about rectifying the core issues that are artificially making demands on this type of mindless activity.
By Dave Foyle
Taking more of our beautiful green space which is the reason we are all drawn to these areas to begin with! We don’t want to be in a busy town! We want grass trees wildlife farming space! Stop building you greedy developers!
By Catriona
Please note that this has not just been Adlington against this proposal. It is up to 10,000 people from all the surrounding towns including people from Stockport and High Peak
By Julie Latham
Lots of brownfield land and unoccupied buildings across the UK that should be utilised. It’s more profitable for developers to build on the greenbelt (no clean up costs etc). This is a ridiculous plan that needs to be stopped dead in its tracks.
By Anonymous
Can PNW do something about comments? When someone describes a scheme like this as communism, we are in the lower reaches of reactionary social media where words have become meaningless.
As it goes, if we had more state intervention we probably wouldn’t have the housing crisis we do. Relying on the free market to deliver housing will always fail, as it has done and continues to do, because housebuilders are there primarily to make a profit, not to meet housing need.
By Green Belt Ben
Hi Green Belt Ben, we are currently exploring ways of improving our comment section. Watch this space. – Julia
By Julia Hatmaker
Massive national housing shortage and of course Cheshire nimby’s sat in their nice houses object. Get it built!
By Anonymous
We need to protect the green belt. Also farmers
By Julie Brooks