The Lib Dems’ draft Local Plan for Stockport was approved for consultation last week, with consultation starting in early September.
I wanted to take the opportunity to give my early, initial thoughts on the proposals.
Stockport, and indeed the whole country, is facing a huge housing crisis. We have around 6,000 families currently on the housing waiting list and temporary accommodation is costing the council hundreds of thousands of pounds. This is money that should be going into our basic services.
We need more homes and, importantly, the right kind of homes for our residents. We need the local plan to reflect the demographics of our borough and we need the infrastructure and importantly the optimised developer contributions to achieve this.
In its current form, Stockport’s local plan won’t deliver this.
Stockport Liberal Democrats have accused of us on numerous occasions of being “hell-bent on concreting over the Greenbelt”.
Although we’re categorically not, I believe that their preferred approach of ‘Brownfield-First’ is actually ‘Brownfield-Only’ in all but name. It’s short sighted and misses the opportunity to make Stockport overall a better place to live.
The preferred approach calls for over 50% of the total housing allocation to be based in Stockport town centre. This area of land is approximately 2km² and is expected to host a staggering 8,000 homes.
To put this into perspective, this is:
- Between 40 and 80 large tower blocks
- Between 160 and 400 smaller tower blocks
- 16 Deansgate Tower Souths, Greater Manchester’s tallest building.
I believe that this is isn’t feasible, particularly when taking into account the desire to build a new hospital in the town centre and discussions around building a secondary school as well.
And even it were possible, this approach would not deliver the infrastructure and the types of housing that Stockport needs. Worst of all, the assessment of the Lib Dems’ own preferred approach states that it’s unlikely to deliver the affordable and adaptable homes this borough craves, coupled with a lack of developer contributions to support education and health needs.
There are some elements I agree on, such as the proposals to deliver more housing near our borough’s railway stations. This has been a plan several years in the making and work began while Stockport Labour ran Stockport Council.
However, a pragmatic and, frankly, grown up approach is needed to solve the housing crisis.
This starts by looking at ‘greybelt’ sites, which are previously developed sites that are Greenbelt in name only.
Housing, in my opinion, needs to be spread fairly across our borough. Stockport Labour’s record on housing is a proud one, with our group most recently securing a review into the future of Stockport Homes.
Providing a decent and affordable home is the key way to addressing inequality and giving everyone a decent stab at life. We’ll continue to lead on this issue for Stockport’s residents.
Next steps
Over the few weeks, Stockport Labour Group will be working together to produce our own response to the consultation.
We will also be encouraging all Stockport residents to contribute to the conversation
The consultation will begin on September 2nd 2024
Cllr David Meller, Leader of Stockport Labour Group