Manchester council has thrown its weight behind the beleaguered regional masterplan for jobs and housing - despite uncertainty over its future.
With no end in sight to the political standoff in Stockport, plans to approve the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework (GMSF) have been postponed in Salford, Trafford, Oldham, Rochdale and Bury.
Councillors in Manchester were told this week that there was a ‘very high risk’ that the GMSF would not get the support it needed.
Under the proposals the city would use its abundance of brownfield sites for high density housing to absorb demand from outlying boroughs and reduce green belt development up until 2037.
Land for around 35,000 homes has been earmarked in Manchester city centre, along with 2.2 million square metres of office floorspace.
Speaking on Wednesday, council leader Sir Richard Leese said: “We should not underestimate the importance of a proper strategic planning framework, not least in the circumstances we find ourselves in at the moment.
“The economic future of this city is completely intertwined as that of our neighbours, and it's incumbent on us to work with our neighbours for the common good.”
Liberal Democrats in Manchester, as in Stockport and elsewhere in the city-region, remain opposed to the release of green belt land, which has been reduced by 60pc in the latest version of the GMSF.
Coun Leese told councillors that if the GMSF was ‘scuppered’ by opposition parties, Stockport would still need to find land for an extra 5,000 homes to meet government targets.
He added: “The only way they’re going to find the land will be by building on the green belt.
“The reason they don’t have to do that is because Manchester, Salford and Rochdale are building above the government housing allocation to effectively donate that excess.”
Councillor John Leech, leader of Manchester council’s two-strong Lib Dem opposition, said it was untrue to suggest that they were opposed to a regional master plan but reiterated his opposition to GMSF in its current form.
He told the meeting that the £81m provided to Greater Manchester by the government would fall short of what was needed to clear former industrial sites for development.
This, he argued, would cause extra pressure to develop green spaces that are technically classed as brownfield sites.
Coun Leech said “The issue for people across Greater Manchester, ot just Liberal Democrats, is the decisions made by which areas of green belt are being proposed for development.”
In response Coun Leese said that the Lib Dems in Stockport, when they were the leading party in the borough, had supported an earlier version of the GMSF which proposed ‘a far greater take of the green belt’ - including sites still within the plan.
He added: “It is opportunism and dishonesty, they are simply looking at what they can do for themselves and not for the people of Stockport.”
Following the debate Manchester’s Labour councillors voted to support the submission of the GMSF to the secretary fo state after the public consultation planned on December 1.
Coun Leech, together with fellow Lib Dem councillor Richard Kilpatrick, voted against the recommendation.
Stockport council is expected to vote the GMSF down on December 3 and, while a ‘plan of nine’ could go ahead without them, the plan would need to be redrawn and delayed once again.
