Greater Manchester’s long awaited development masterplan is to be delayed a seventh time as two councils battle it out over one industrial site.
A final version of the spatial framework - which has been in the planning for at least five years - was supposed to be published yesterday, but a last-minute falling out between Stockport and Tameside councils threatened to derail it and meant the document didn’t materialise.
The row centres on a single site, the Bredbury Park industrial estate, despite it having been in the plan since the first version was published in 2016.
Stockport council has long intended to expand the estate as part of the framework - which maps out where homes and businesses will be built across Greater Manchester between now and 2037 - but ten days ago Tameside council raised a fierce objection at the eleventh hour in a private meeting of leaders.
Since then they have been at loggerheads, with senior officials and Andy Burnham among those trying to seek a compromise.
It is understood that over the weekend, Stockport council offered a scale-down version of the proposal in a move that is said to have broken the impasse.
However that now means the spatial framework’s publication will have to be delayed yet again.
Leaders met in private this morning and agreed to put it back, potentially until November, so that planners can do the technical work needed to amend the Bredbury site proposal.
“They don’t know how long it’s going to take to do this piece of work, because they’ve got to assess the viability of the Bredbury site,” said one senior council source of the task now facing planning officials.
“I think it’s expected to come back in November but we can’t definitely say that will be the case.”
The GMSF was a key part of Greater Manchester’s devolution deal in 2014 and was designed to show that the ten boroughs could work together in order to map out an economic future.
There have already been two versions, one in 2016 - which Andy Burnham then pledged to rip up and 'radically' rewrite during his mayoral campaign the following year - and a new one in 2019, both of which received tens of thousands of consultation responses.
Alongside that there have been a string of delays to the document, for varying political and technical reasons, which eventually led to an October 2020 publication date being settled upon.
As a result the final version, a leaked copy of which the M.E.N. summarised at the weekend, was originally meant to be launched to fanfare yesterday, ahead of its publication on an agenda due to go before council leaders for approval next week.
But the row between Tameside and Stockport saw the launch cancelled, before the document itself also failed to surface yesterday.
This morning council leaders met in private again and discussed a revised proposal for the Bredbury site, drawn up by Stockport council and designed to assuage concerns from Tameside council around traffic and environmental issues.
It is understood the revised proposal for Bredbury would reduce the amount of land intended for development in order to protect more green space in the Tame Valley.
Leaders agreed more time was now needed to do the necessary technical background work on the new proposal.
As a result it remains unclear exactly when it will go before leaders in public, or when it will then be tabled to individual councils for final approval.
It is understood Greater Manchester is still hoping to get the plan out to final public consultation this year, after which it would go to the Secretary of State.
A spokesperson for the Greater Manchester Combined Authority said: “Our plan for homes, jobs and the environment, the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework, is currently being finalised and will be published once necessary final changes have been made.”
