Gorse Hill Labour

A regular blog and updates from Mike Cordingley, Councillor for Gorse Hill Ward in Trafford – Gtr Manchester.

Archives: News Items

Winning the war against homelessness

Labour Councillor, James Wright has spoken of his pride after Trafford Council revealed it is starting to win the war against homelessness in the borough.

Cllr Wright, the Council’s Executive Member for Housing and Regeneration, spoke after a report revealed the Council’s Homelessness Strategy was proving to be a huge success.

The five-year strategy, which was launched in 2019, has helped hundreds of families from becoming homeless and has taken rough sleepers off the streets of Trafford.

The major achievements of the Council’s Homelessness Strategy so far include:

  • 444 households prevented from becoming homeless in 2019/20
  • Securing permanent accommodation for 21 long-term rough sleepers
  • Providing housing advice to 34,485 households in 2019/20
  • The Housing Options Service Trafford (HOST) team visited 2,360 households in 2019/20

The strategy sets out the Council’s priorities for Trafford over the next five years. They are: To prevent homelessness in Trafford; increase the supply of social housing and good quality temporary accommodation, work towards ending rough sleeping; improve access to employment, education and training for homeless people in Trafford and to improve their health and wellb

I cannot imagine how awful it must be to be without a permanent home for you and your family – it is the ultimate nightmare. That is why we are doing everything we can to win the battle against homelessness in Trafford.

Cllr Wright

Scoping Stretford Mall

The developers for Stretford Mall and Lacy Street, Trafford Bruntwood, have submitted a scoping report request.

The nature of the development in our town centre makes it a requirement to submit an Environmental Impact Assessment with the planning application.

This scoping request is a preliminary exercise to tease out the subject matter that will need to be included within the Environmental Impact Assessment.

Whilst a scoping request is not particularly noteworthy in itself, the description submitted in terms of the plan for Stretford is exciting:

  • Demolition of selected buildings on site;
  • Up to 800 residential dwellings (Use Class C3);
  • Up to 13,000sqm mixed retail and commercial uses(Use Class E);
  • Up to 2,800 sqm public house / drinking establishment / Takeaways / Theatres / Cinemas / Cafes (Sui Generis);
  • Up to 720 sqm of learning and non-learning institutions (Use Class F1);
  • Up to 2400 sqm for local community uses (Use Class F2)
  • Public realm;
  • Landscaping; and
  • Associated infrastructure.
Scoping Documents

Greatstone Hotel flats rejected by planners

By planning standards this was a hard-hitting report.

The principle of the demolition of the existing buildings and their replacement with residential development was considered acceptable.

However, for reasons set out in full later in the report, the assessment of the scheme against NPPF (National Planning Policy Framework) policies relating to heritage ‘provides a clear reason for refusing the development’.

There were also other issues which weighed against the proposal relating to:

  • the design,
  • siting,
  • scale,
  • massing and bulk of the development,
  • the lack of good quality amenity space
  • and the lack of parking provision

The report also drew the members attention to the fact that most of the dwellings would not meet the nationally described space standards so the poor level of amenity was exacerbated and also indicated an overdevelopment of the site.

The proposal was for 57 apartments in an ‘L’ shaped block with a five storey frontage to Chester Road adjacent to the Gorse Hill Park gates on the site of the Greatstone Hotel.

Planning committee unanimously supported the officers’ report and refused permission on the submitted plans.

Hotel set for demolition

Councillor Mike Cordingley is a member of the planning committeee

Andy Burnham signs net-zero carbon pledge

C40 Cities, the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (GCoM) and CDP announced a campaign to recruit as many as 1,000 cities around the world to deliver inclusive climate action, consistent with constraining global temperature rise to 1.5°C set out in the Paris Agreement, and initiate a green and just recovery from COVID-19.

Andy Burnham signed up to this commitment.

Read more on the Paris commitment