Plan for Prestbury

Plan for Prestbury update June 2010

The following summary of the current state of progress on implementation of the Plan for Prestbury was presented by the Chairman of the Parish Council to the Annual Parish Meeting on 4th May 2010. Further information can be obtained from the Parish Clerk.

Community Information

The “Welcome Pack” aimed at newcomers to the village is up and running and in use by the Estate Agents.

Plan for Prestbury suggested a website as a means of village communication and to allow people to find out more about what is going on.
A group of volunteers have now launched www.Prestburyvillage.com and this has been advertised around the village in a number of ways. The website works on most platforms, including iPod/iPhone and Blackberry so can be accessed while people are away from their computers. This phase 1 development includes (amongst other things) a directory of businesses and clubs and societies including details such as opening times, contact information etc. Any organisations not currently included are welcome to apply.
The website team are now considering developments for phase 2. These include enhanced calendar as well as regular update service and more interactive options. Suggestions are welcome!
To show that more prosaic and traditional communications methods are not being forgotten, the Parish Council has embarked upon a programme of refurbishment of the village notice boards. You may have noticed that the Village sign at the end of Bridge Green has also recently been refurbished.
Community facilities
A separate working group, made up of some of the volunteers who worked on the original plan together with others representing a wide cross section of clubs and organisations is now working on a feasibility study to assess to possibility of creating a new community meeting facility somewhere on the Bollin Grove site currently occupied by the tennis and squash clubs, childrens’playground and football pitch, to meet the demand for improved facilities that was signalled by the Plan for Prestbury survey. Funding for this feasibility study has been secured from Cheshire Community Action and this has been matched by the Parish Council. The outcome will be a professional assessment of potential solutions. Should the conclusion be that a viable plan emerges from this process then this will form the basis of a full consultation with all stakeholders and the wider community. The team is also looking at possible improvements to the surface and the drainage of the football pitch.

Village Green and Events
The principal recommendation was a plan to make certain changes to the site of Parrott’s Field in order to make it more welcoming and practical for the use of the community. This plan, which the Parish Council endorsed, continues to be the subject of opposition from the Preserve Prestbury Action Group and hence no action has as yet been taken by the Cheshire East council, the landowner and responsible authority. The latest position is that a meeting was held last week, under the chairmanship of Councillor Bill Livesley at which the opposing views were presented and Cllr Livesley will now make a recommendation to the Cheshire East portfolio holder, Cllr Andrew Knowles who will decide upon what action Cheshire East should take.

Bollin Valley projects
Initiatives to make improvements to parts of the Bollin Valley Way to enable joint use walking/cycling paths remain on the table but require the consent of the landowner to take them forward. To date we have had no success in establishing the necessary dialogue. This is frustrating and of course also affects plans for the control of Himalayan Balsam and we should like to thank those who volunteered to help with this exercise. We have probably missed the window for this season but will continue to work to break the bottleneck.

Managed Development and Planning
The Plan recommended the production of a new Supplementary Planning Document which would incorporate many of the concerns about planning that were raised by residents in the survey. This has been completed and the Cheshire East planners have conducted public consultation on the document and two drop-in sessions were held to discuss it and general parish issues. We are now awaiting the presentation of the draft final version of the SPD to the Council.

Teenagers and Business Forums
I am pleased to report that, as a result of the Plan for Prestbury recommendations both a Youth Forum and a Business Forum have been established and continue to meet. The Youth Forum is providing valuable input to the Community Facilities Feasibility Team and the Business group, as you will hear, is taking a lively and constructive interest in the search for a solution to the Post office problem.

Traffic and Transportation
This area of the Plan’s recommendations produced a long list of areas for further work – aimed principally at making the roads and pavements safer and more pleasant to use. A group of three councillors has taken responsibility to take this forward. Regrettably, it is this section of our work on the Plan that calls for the greatest degree of input and support from Cheshire East Officers and it has consequently suffered the most from the disruption caused by the reorganisation of the principal authorities. Our experience has been that there are still insufficient officers in place and there is no money to do anything. I would ask you to accept that this is not a case of 'passing the buck'. CEC are the highway authority, not the parish Council and we are very much in their hands. To add to the problems, the exceptionally hard winter stretched the authority's limited highway capacity to breaking point. The after effects of that are still pre-occupying them in trying to deal with all the pot holes that were created. The Local Authorities are desperately trying to get more money out of government to deal with pot holes. Some has been released, but nowhere near enough. We are just one of hundreds of Parish Councils that our principal authority has to deal with and we are all trying to channel in at the moment through the same few individuals, which creates the most impossible bottleneck.

Despite these difficulties, we have done a considerable amount of work checking out the various types of portable speed check devices available and I am hopeful that we shall soon be in a position to consider firm proposals to purchase equipment that will enable us to monitor speeding at various points around the parish. We have also had the support of the Police in conducting a number of random speeding checks as a result of which fixed penalties have been imposed. We expect that this will continue. Finally, we are continuing to work to try to establish an Adopt-a-station scheme aimed at improving and managing the railway station infrastructure.

It is fair to say that we always recognized that progress on roads and traffic, dependent as it is upon the cooperation of the highways authority and other officers, would be the most difficult aspect of the Plan for Prestbury to deliver. So it is proving but the Parish Council remains committed to continue with the task and we hope that we shall be able, gradually, to deliver the improvements that the community wants to see.

Plan for Prestbury

Prestbury Parish Council received the findings of Plan for Prestbury on 16th December 2008 and the Parish Council have commenced their deliberations.



RESPONSE FROM PRESTBURY PARISH COUNCIL
TO PLAN FOR PRESTBURY PROPOSALS


Recommendation: Open up and improve Parrott’s Field to meet public demand for a village green in Prestbury

Although it should be noted that Parrott’s Field is not, and never has been, “closed” in any legal or official sense, it has - to all intents and purposes - not been regarded by most residents as being generally accessible to them. Certainly, in its present condition, it is far from a welcoming area. We believe it is inappropriate that this plot of land, strategically located at the heart of the village and designated for public use, should not be readily and clearly open for the use of residents. The Plan for Prestbury has presented a persuasive case that making the site more accessible would be widely welcomed by residents.

We also note that the owners of the land, Macclesfield Borough Council (MBC), have expressed a wish to see the site made more accessible and welcoming and have outlined a plan which accords closely with the proposals of the Plan for Prestbury. In addition, the Parish Council is mindful of concerns expressed by MBC officers that such a plot of publicly owned land without any obvious public benefit could become a target for development, particularly as the government are pressing local authorities to provide as much housing as they can and the adopted Regional Spatial Strategy has no ceiling for housing provision.

The Parish Council notes that the area is designated on the current Local Plan as being primarily for residential purposes and believes that, despite the land having been donated as a public open space and it being within the Conservation Area, there is a real danger of it becoming a development target. Such a possibility must be regarded seriously and steps should be taken to safeguard against such an eventuality. This is an important green lung in the heart of the built-up area. It must be used for the purpose for which it was intended – as a community open space - and it must be seen to be used as such for its own protection.

For all of these reasons the Parish Council would support the early implementation of the MBC’s proposals.

The Parish Council is aware of concerns expressed by local residents of Bridge Green and has received representations on their behalf from the Preserve Prestbury Action Group (PPAG). There are worries about possible noise, litter, nuisance, vandalism and threats to the natural environment. Both the Parish Council and the Borough Council are sympathetic to these sensitivities and wish to ensure that any changes to Parrott’s Field should explicitly address them. We believe that the limited proposals outlined by both Plan for Prestbury and MBC do take these into account and they should ensure that the fears of some residents are not realised. Specifically, we note that alcohol and dogs would be banned from the area and that the only open gates would not permit access by motorised vehicles.

The undulating topography of the site would be retained, additional hedging has been offered to ensure or enhance privacy of residents and no equipment is to be introduced, other than benches and a footpath that would run well away from the rear gardens of the adjoining properties. In addition to these safeguards, the Parish Council would wish to explore practical options for the site to be locked at dusk if this were felt to be desirable and would ensure that a key remains in the possession of the Council so that the site could be secured at any time should problems develop.
In short, while the Council is firmly of the belief that these limited proposals to make Parrott’s Field more welcoming and accessible should work for the benefit of the wider community and without detriment to local residents, we would retain within the local community the ability to reverse the changes should they not work out.


We would wish to acknowledge an alternative proposal, put forward by the PPAG, to plant an additional hedge part way across the site to allow partial access while retaining a portion of the field, nearest to the houses, that would not be accessible. This idea was discussed by the Parish Council, representatives of the PPAG and the responsible officer of the Macclesfield Borough Council, owners of the land, who indicated that it was the Borough Council’s wish to see the whole site made more accessible and that any division of the land along these lines would be therefore unacceptable to them.

Finally, and on a point of detail, the Parish Council is not greatly enamoured of the proposed designation ’The Green at Parrott’s Field’ and would prefer the simple and established ’Parrott’s Field’.

Recommendation: Construct new ’Riverside’ car park and replace toilet block with one or two smaller unisex units


The Parish Council acknowledges that the Plan for Prestbury presents persuasive evidence to show car parking in Prestbury can be problematic. We note that 60% of respondents to the P4P survey were either dissatisfied with parking provision or felt that improvement was required. The survey of utilisation demonstrates that, at times, the Shirley’s car park is full during busy day time hours and that the Springfields is often similarly full to capacity in the evening time. We also acknowledge the desire expressed by businesses for additional parking and the belief that this may be one factor in the difficulty being encountered in re-letting the vacant commercial premises in The Village.

The solution proposed is to create an additional car park on the site of the public conveniences adjacent to the river Bollin. However, it would appear that this could potentially have mixed consequences on nearby domestic properties. There might be less traffic using Bridge Green to turn round but there might be a greater nuisance to one property in particular from the noise of car doors slamming late at night.

In spite of evidence presented as to the limited use made of the existing public toilets, (and the dislike of the design of the toilet block expressed when the Village Design Statement survey was conducted), widespread opposition has been expressed by residents to the loss of this facility, a fact acknowledged by P4P in a proposal to retain a toilet facility, albeit on a reduced scale. The Council notes the positive response given to improved landscaping segment of the P4P proposal and feels that local organisations may wish to look at the possibility of improving the overall landscaping of the area around the toilet block.

In this age of the multiple car family and reduced public transport, there can be few, if any, communities that cannot point to some inadequacy in car parking provision. Prestbury is no exception to this and the Parish Council neither wishes to underestimate this fact nor to downplay genuine concerns of the parish’s businesses as to the long-term viability of commercial activity in Prestbury. Nevertheless, interpreting the evidence of scale of the problem of car parking in the parish – including the statistical evidence of utilisation – is a matter of judgement. We have to balance the provision of a limited number of additional parking spaces against the effect on the historic village centre of developing an essentially open space in the heart of the conservation area.
The Parish Council recognises the measure of support expressed at the October Open Weekend to the proposed development but nevertheless we remain cautious about sanctioning such a permanent alteration to the village centre. There also remains the question of establishing a solution to the public toilets issue that would command widespread support.

As the Plan for Prestbury points out, funding the proposed scheme represents a considerable hurdle and no immediate funding solutions are envisaged. It is a fact, therefore, that an early implementation of the plan is not a viable proposition and so we can take time for further consideration. The Parish Council would particularly like to gain a better understanding of the businesses’ concerns about parking and we would be happy to undertake further work on utilisation levels. In addition, we would wish to be sure that opportunities to expand capacity in the existing car parks have been fully and exhaustively pursued before a new car park is contemplated and will undertake to pursue this with the new principal authority. The possibility of creating a small lay-by parking area to facilitate off-road access for motorists using the toilets or making brief calls to the New Road shops might also be considered. As short term measures we fully support the proposal to mark individual spaces on the A538 in The Village and to improve signage to and in the existing car parks.


Recommendations: Take forward the idea of constructing a new moderate sized multi-user community and sports facility in the Bollin grove area. Take forward an initiative to upgrade the playing field. Set up a working party to look at further opportunities that may arise from the possible acquisition of privately owned land adjacent to the existing Bollin Grove sports facilities.

The Council understands that a group of interested individuals stands ready to form a working group to pursue these matters and the Council is willing to help in any way we can to get such a group up and running, including nominating a Parish Councillor to the group if this is felt to be helpful. We should like to have input to the group’s terms of reference and should like to see its membership cast as wide as possible. Involvement of the Tennis and Squash Clubs and of the other groups that have expressed a particular interest in having a new facility would seem to us to be essential. We should also like to see the school involved.

The Plan for Prestbury rightly highlights concerns regarding car parking and traffic flows should a new facility be built in the Bollin Grove area. The Council would regard provision of appropriate and sympathetic car parking as a pre-requisite for any further development of the area.

With regard to proposed improvements to the playing field the Parish Council, as joint owners of the field (along with the principal authority), is willing to pursue ways in which this might be achieved. It should be appreciated, however, that any such plan must be built upon a satisfactory and permanent resolution of drainage problems for which we are ultimately dependent upon the utility company. Previous efforts by the Council to secure the co-operation of this body have not proved fruitful.

It seems hardly necessary for us to point out that these initiatives collectively amount to a significant and ambitious programme. We can see no obvious reason at this time for this effort to be diluted by hypothetical considerations with regard to possible further expansion of the area and encroachment further into the Green Belt.