Selling off green belt land for housing to fund the transformation of a special school would be ‘too heavy a price for the local community to pay’, the area’s MP has said.
Cheadle MP Mary Robinson made the remarks at a public inquiry into Seashell Trust’s controversial plans to part-pay for the revamp of its Heald Green campus by allowing a 325-home development to be built on its fields.
Stockport council refused the scheme planning permission early last year, but the trust launched an appeal against the decision.
Bosses at the school, which caters for children and young people with profound disabilities and highly complex needs, say the revamp is desperately needed to bring the 1950s site up to date.
On its opening day the inquiry, held at Fred Perry House in Stockport , was told that refusal of the school’s appeal could throw its future into doubt – Future of special educational needs school could be in doubt
However campaigners claim the trust’s proposals go well beyond what is needed to modernise the school, and the loss of the fields is unnecessary.
But, while acknowledging the ‘fantastic work’ done by the trust’, Mrs Robinson said the cost of losing green belt land would be too high.
The Conservative, first elected in 2015, said residents’ physical and mental health could be put ‘at risk’ were the development to go ahead in its current form.
She said: “We need adequate green belt provision for a number of reasons and it will be wrong for us to overlook those benefits.
“Removing this green belt barrier and allowing the proposed development would not only merge urban communities but have a negative impact on the wellbeing of those communities.
Future of special educational needs school could be in doubt
“Our health agenda is increasingly one which seeks to socially prescribe rather than medicate, and our open spaces are an important part of local public health.”
Mrs Robinson added that councils had ‘rightly identified’ mental health as a key public health issue, warning that the role of green spaces in addressing this issue must not be overlooked.
“In my view the evidence is clear that maintaining access to green spaces, coupled with physical activity, improves mental wellbeing and can help remedy mild depression,” she said.
“Depriving residents in Heald Green of this vital ‘green lung’ will have a significant impact.”
The Tory MP also told the inquiry a new housing estate would create more congestion on the area’s already clogged-up roads – running counter to the aims of the Greater Manchester Clean Air Strategy.
Summing up her position on the matter, she added: “It is argued that the ‘very special circumstances’ necessitating this development justify the loss of green belt as set out in the application.
“However, when considered alongside the other factors, such as traffic congestion, the lack of suitable infrastructure and the cost to the public, the balance tips.
“The loss of this green belt would be too heavy a price for the local community to pay.”
The inquiry, chaired by planning inspector Michael Boniface, is due to run until June 25.
