Tameside to reconsider 2,150-home Godley Green
The garden village, one of the area’s largest housing allocations in Places for Everyone, will return to the council’s planning committee on 18 March after a letter of complaint was filed over councillors’ decision to reject the scheme in January.
The letter alleges that councillors did not follow the proper procedure for considering the outline planning application for up to 2,150 homes on 254 acres of land north of Mottram Old Road in Hyde.
Godley Green is a proposal from Tameside Council and MADE Partnership, a joint venture between Barratt Redrow, Lloyds Banking Group, and Homes England. It had been to the committee twice before – once in 2023 and another time in 2024 – with councillors voting to approve both of those times.
In January, it went before the committee again due to a series of amendments, including the addition of an internal link road, changes to the drainage strategy, inclusion of a skills hub, replacement of the design code, and the shrinkage of the site to remove a piece of agricultural land.
It was this application that councillors voted to refuse in the contentious meeting, whose attendees included campaigners from the Save Tameside Green Belt protest group. It is worth noting that Godley Green is not within the Green Belt.
The letter, written by Tameside Council and MADE Partnership’s agent, cites among the failure to follow procedure issues the fact that members voted to refuse the application before a valid planning reason for the rejection was provided.
Instead, after the vote was complete, councillors debated what the planning reason should be for approximately 30 minutes.
In the end, the councillors settled on the Section 106 measures proposed failing to adequately mitigate the impact of the development.
The decision to reconsider the application on 18 March was made after the council consulted Kings Counsel.
You can review the letter, and the rest of the planning application documents, by searching 21/01171/OUT on Tameside Council’s planning portal.
So let me get this straight, the Council wrote a letter to themselves, complaining about about they themselves had acted wrongly in the committee. No-one does bureacracy like the British.
By Lee
Tameside Council applied to Tameside Council for planning permission. Tameside Council declined to give Tameside Council planning permission but failed to have regard to Tameside Council’s procedure for determining planning applications which have been made to Tameside Council. Tameside Council then complained to Tameside Council, leading to Tameside Council seeking legal advice and deciding that Tameside Council’s planning application to Tameside Council would have to be redetermined by Tameside Council.
I think I’ve got that right.
By Anonymous
Prime example why councillors should have no say in planning or development.
By Allergic to Squirrels
Tameside planning Committee did not reject Godley Green in January. They refused to adopt the variations to the November 23 resoltion to approve which still stands. Godley Green is settled GMCA and TMBC policy, no longer Green Belt, a crucial part of Tameside Council’s five years supply, and the subject of a Secretary of State approval for Tameside to proceed. Tameside have already drawn down £1m from Homes England towards the cost of bringing forward this scheme. If Tamesdie were to be so stupid as to prevent it progressing as an Authority that £1m becomes repayable. Given the clear green lights to progression there is no option for the Secretary of State to do other than approve. Tameside Planning Committee have one sensible course of action on the 18th – save the Council wasted time and money – and approve!
By Just a Manc
lets get this straight the councillors did provide reasons before the vote! This is tameside council trying to bend the rules!
By Anonymous
Tameside can’t even sort out ashton town hall out they didn’t know about the covenant on it
By Anonymous
Godley rail station is only one train in hour but 10 years time will be 3 times in one hour which means family of children will be grown and grown it will be getting worse and worse RISK for local authorities. Better less than 400 new home which will be very sensible.
By G J Kitchener
Sounds like a script from Yes Minister.
Sir Humphrey is alive and well.in Tameside
By Old Ashtonian
@ G J Kitchener (March 03, 2026 at 8:44 am)
The problem with ‘less than 400 homes’ is that it leaves you with 1,750 homes to deliver elsewhere, spreading the impact of the total number of homes across a wider area and making it significantly harder to mitigate its impact through strategic scale type interventions (such as increased frequency of rail services). You’ll not likely get an increase in rail services if you only build 400 homes because the increased patronage simply wouldn’t be enough. Providing the infrastructure required to mitigate the impact of new homes is critical but is far more likely to be done, and to be successful, if you’re able to deliver the new homes on larger rather than smaller sites.
By Anonymous
To be honest Tameside council is actually don’t know what they doing, the top officials is completely unprofessional. 👎🏻
By G J Kitchener
This scheme is totally unacceptable and bears no requirement in this area. You have to laugh at the name, as there is nothing green about it. No understanding of the infrastructure issues this would. Welcome to Tarmac Tameside
By J