Local plan scoping consultation

[REDACTED]

As a resident of Cheshire East I am responding to the above consultation - I am a keen walker and have worked as a volunteer gardener for [REDACTED] for the past 15 years.

I am deeply concerned about how the future housing developments will impact our local countryside, infrastructure and local communities.
I was involved in the campaign to save Adlington from the proposed New Town and many of the concerns raised then hold true for anyone living in the communities in East Cheshire - to summarise

• The loss of Greenbelt which the Chesire Wildlife Trust described as a nature 'Super highway' connecting the Peak District and the Cheshire plain enabling all the wildlife within to move freely through the green spaces
• The loss of thousands of acres of productive agricultural land, impacting on our food security - this cannot in any way be described as non productive 'Grey belt'
• The loss of access to open space between communities which is known to be of immense psychological and health benefit
• The creation of urban sprawl where smaller communities each with their own uniique character will over time be submerged into an amorphous spread of asphalt and concrete
• The impact on a totally inadequate existing infrastructure of small roads, inadequate water supply and sewage services and a rail system that does not have the capacity to cope with thousands of extra residents. The costs of improving this infrastructure to a level where it could cope would be immense
• The impact on health and welfare services and education provision would likewise be immense and would require a huge amount of investment to mitigate this.
• There has been much said about the need for affordable housing (which I sympathise with) but as for the developers who have responded to your call for development land - the provision of affordable housing is the last thing on their minds - they get much more of a profit out of building large estates of 3-4-5 bedroom houses than providing starter homes and time and time again I have witnessed them evading their promises to build a proportion of affordable homes and contributing anything like enough money for the necessary improvements to infrastructure.
• There are many areas of brownfield sites, especially in deprived urban areas of East Cheshire where development of affordable housing and the injection of much needed cash to improve the existing infrastructure is of vital importance. Doing this would provide young people with the first step on the housing ladder, in areas where they want to live and work and would provide a much needed boost to the local economy where it is most needed.
I hope you will continue to inform all the folk who have responded to your initial consultation with information about future plans and to give them their say in the future of our beautiful countryside and communities.