THE newly-published Cheshire East Development Strategy, which is now open to consultation, has interestingly earmarked even more green belt land to the north of Knutsford for housing and employment use.

The northern green belt site, referred to by the council as Site Knutsford 2, includes not only sites B, C and E of the draft strategy but now includes land extending way north of site C. It includes a further site of well over five hectares, (ha), which were not identified or consulted on in the Draft Town Strategy. It takes further green belt land in to land earmarked for development.

We all acknowledge the need to accommodate young families and the elderly and to provide more good quality housing in Knutsford. But the published development strategy simply does not add up.

The document states the requirements for Knutsford between 2010 and 2030 to be 16 ha of housing land (400 new homes at 25 homes per ha) and 10 ha of employment land. That is a total of 26 ha.

Of this requirement, the document identifies six hectares of employment land at Parkgate.

Why then does the development strategy go on to earmark huge swathes of green belt land, including a stonking 50 ha of green belt to the north of the sports clubs of the town, for housing and employment uses.

For those who want to break down the numbers this is site B (19 ha), C (14 ha), E (12 ha) and the further newly designated five ha north of C.

The development strategy fails to use the opportunity to earmark land at the Parkgate extension for housing, despite the Draft Town Strategy stating that up to 300 to 450 houses (in addition to seven ha of employment development) could be accommodated on this site and identifying that there were 16 ha of non-green belt land within the site.

Admittedly it may be more costly to deliver and mean more costly infrastructure, but surely this would be of benefit the east of the town?

It may be that a small amount of adjacent green belt land needs to be released to make this viable.

But to earmark a massive 50 ha of northern green belt for housing and employment is not only unnecessarily excessive but also at odds with the council’s stated objectives for Knutsford.

The constraints which rightly discounted other green belt sites from inclusion apply equally if not more to the northern green belt site now highlighted for development.

We call on the council to change its proposals.

SUSAN FARRINGTON, KATHLEEN JOY ANDERTON, R WHITTAKER, SIMON & WENDY MUNDAY, JOHN BARBER, JOHN & MARGARET BRIGGS, HEATHER CUNNINGHAM, LUAN GOLDSMITH, WAYNE BLAIRS, WENDY & ANDREW RYAN, ALEX & EMILY RYAN, LINDA HULME, PHIL & PAULINE DEAN, TERRI & KEVIN GRIFFITHS