The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) is currently consulting on massive planning powers that will be out of the hands of Salford Council and will affect the city and the other nine districts of Greater Manchester for the next twenty years...
...At stake is the Green Belt, a spiralling urban sprawl and, as GMCA itself states, the character of many places across Greater Manchester could be `transformed'.
The horribly named Greater Manchester Spatial Framework (GMSF) is a document, to be enshrined in policy, that sets out the region's needs for housing and commercial space... "Our aim is to achieve a step change in the rate and quality of Development" states the GMCA "This will inevitably lead to difficult decisions in relation to land supply, and investment and will have impacts upon our social infrastructure which will need to be addressed."
Tied in with the so-called Northern Powerhouse and devolution, the GMSF relates to the overall scale of growth that Greater Manchester should be looking for over the next twenty years in terms of housing, industrial land and offices.
Three options are being mooted with the third one directly influenced by a campaign called Housing the Powerhouse, which the document states was "led by the Home Builders Federation and backed by a range of housebuilders, developers and investors...Option 3 is framed around the Housing the Powerhouse proposals...".
Questions must be asked about how and why `housebuilders, developers and investors' can have such influence over the framing of a consultation. When was the last time the community or trade unions actually got an option included on an official local authority/Geater Manchester consultation?
This Option 3 would see the whole region virtually up for development, and enshrined in policy, with Greater Manchester seeing 336,000 net additional dwellings, or 16,000 per year for twenty years being built in the region.
Within the document Salford is earmarked for 19% of all new properties in Greater Manchester, which would mean a staggering 63,840 flats and houses by 2035 55% more than what are actually identified as being needed.
This Option 3 would also see 4,050,000m2 of new industrial and warehousing floorspace, 17% higher than needed (Salford is earmarked for 11%), and 2,725,000m2 of new office floorspace, 14% higher than needed (Salford is earmarked for 23%)...
"Such levels of growth would also be likely to come at a price" states the GMCA consultation report "In order to accommodate the amount of development identified above, very large areas of land outside the existing urban area would need to be used, including considerable parts of the Green Belt.
"This could lead to the loss of significant areas of agricultural land, and transform the character of many places across Greater Manchester" it adds "There would be major increases in the number of travel movements within, into and out of Greater Manchester, and delivering the necessary transport improvements would be very challenging and could require massive public investment..."
Option 2 would see 217,350 `net additional dwellings', or an average of 10,350
per year built in Greater Manchester; a 40% increase on the annual average `net additional dwellings' built between 2004-2014. Salford would soak up 19% of these, or 41,296 flats and houses.
Greater Manchester would also strive for 3,452,000m2 of new industrial and warehousing floorspace, and 2,399,000m2 of new office floorspace over twenty years. Under this Option 2, the consultation report states, "it is likely that a significant proportion of the additional supply would have to involve the development of land outside the existing urban area, and some of this may be in the Green Belt."
Option 1 is the `stay as you are' option, and even this would mean 152,800 net additional dwellings, or 7,300 per year. In Salford this would still mean 29,032 flats and houses built over the next twenty years, although the report states it would be "30% lower than the objectively assessed need". Option 1 also advocates 2,526,000m2 of new industrial and warehousing floorspace, and 2,573,300m2 of new office floorspace.
"Option 1 would clearly have the significant benefit of reducing the amount
of existing open land that would be lost to development, as no additional sites
would be required beyond those that have already been identified by districts" states the report "but it also risks investment being lost to other locations. This option would enable the retention of existing Green Belt boundaries, and would help to protect agricultural land across Greater Manchester. Lower levels of development would also reduce the investment that would be required in new and improved infrastructure, such as transport and schools."
The consultation should be shaping up to be a battle between community interests and developers. But it's not. And the developers' Option 3 could well end up being chosen as few residents in Greater Manchester know about the consultation, which ends on 11th January, and what it could mean.
Salford City Council has absolutely no information on its website (that we can find) on the GMSF, and even the GMCA doesn't flag the consultation up on the front of its website. The only people who seem to know about it are planning-related councillors, bureaucrats and `housebuilders, developers and investors'...
And, of course, the power to decide these `strategic land allocations' will not be in the hands of Salford Council but the new Greater Manchester Mayor with the consent of his Cabinet.
Back in January (see here), at a full meeting of Salford Council, a councillor asked about whether the Council would be able to challenge the final policy..."There may be legislative change which means that we would not have the power to approve it" explained the then Assistant Mayor for Planning, Councillor Derek Antrobus "That power will be somewhere else..."
At the same meeting, the Council approved a report on the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework which included the wording "The GM Agreement provides for a directly elected mayor with powers over strategic planning, including the power to create a statutory spatial framework for GM [Greater Manchester]..."
So, once the GMSF is agreed somewhere away from Salford, no-one can stop developers running riot, particularly if Option 3 is agreed. Yet no-one even knows that the thing is being consulted upon, so that they can object to the serpent's egg before it's hatched...
Eamonn Boylan, GM Chief Executive Lead for Planning and Housing told the Salford Star...
"We have promoted the consultation as widely as possible through local and regional media, using the Combined Authority's website and social media channels and through individual councils' communications. We want as many local people as possible to have their say..."
To read and comment on the 76 page (plus background papers), stunningly named Greater Manchester Spatial Framework: Strategic Options Consultation, see the GMCA portal click here
See also the background to the GMSF with links to the consultation - click here
Comments can be emailed to gmsf@agma.gov.uk or sent to: GM Integrated Support Team, PO Box 532, Town Hall, Manchester M60 2LA. Comments must be received no later than Monday 11th January 2016.
Eamonn Boylan, GM Chief Executive Lead for Planning added: "The current consultation, which covers the options for the size or scale of required growth, is just one of the opportunities that local people will be given to have their say. The next stage of public consultation, which is due in late 2016, will provide more detail about where development could be accommodated across the city-region, including housing and employment land figures for each district. It will also set out ways that we can support development while protecting the city-region's green space, so that we develop great places where people want to live, work and visit."
* See also previous Salford Star article: GMCA aims to reduce pollution and congestion - click here
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