Bredbury 134 Affordable Homes: Comments Close 28 August

All 134 homes proposed off Shakespeare Road would be social rent or shared ownership, on green belt. Comments close Friday 28 August, 47 objections in so far.

Residents have until Friday 28 August to comment on plans for 134 homes on green belt meadow off Shakespeare Road in Bredbury. Every one of the 134 would be affordable: 75 for social rent and 59 for shared ownership. Nothing on the site would be sold on the open market.

The application is DC/098893 on Stockport Council’s planning register. It was received on 23 April and validated on 29 July, and the register records 49 comments so far: 47 objections, one in support and one neither. The council consulted 96 addresses.

The applicant is Westchurch Homes, with Maybern Planning and Development acting as agent. The case officer is Mark Jordan. The site sits in the Bredbury and Woodley ward.

The deadlines that matter

The register lists four separate dates, and the first is this week:

Friday 28 August: neighbour consultation closes
Monday 31 August: the site notice expires
Wednesday 2 September: the press advertisement expires
Wednesday 28 October: the council’s own deadline to decide

Comments can still be made after the neighbour deadline and the case officer must take account of anything received before the decision, but 28 August is the date the council has set for the households it wrote to. Comments go in through the register entry above.

What is proposed

The scheme covers about 4.7 hectares of greenfield land that the planning statement describes as meadow fields used for mowing hay, sloping from east to west and largely enclosed by woodland, trees and hedgerows. It abuts the built-up edge of south Bredbury and south-west Romiley, and meets Shakespeare Road and Marlowe Walks on its north-eastern side.

The tenure and bedroom mix set out in the application documents.

There would be ten house types across apartments, a bungalow, mews, semi detached and detached homes, adding up to 359 bedrooms. The mix is 16 one bedroom, 42 two bedroom, 45 three bedroom and 31 four bedroom homes. Other details from the submitted documents:

vehicles would enter from Marlowe Walks, through an extension of the existing cul-de-sac, with the pedestrian link off Shakespeare Road kept
parking is proposed at two spaces per home, with electric vehicle charge points to every home and to the apartment parking area
homes would have air source heat pumps, roof solar panels, water butts and permeable driveways
a pumping station and an attenuation pond would sit on the western side of the site
three trees would be lost, with the main tree belts and the pond on the north-eastern boundary retained

The Affordable Housing Statement says Westchurch Homes is in discussion with Mosscare St Vincents, a housing association with more than 9,000 homes, which would buy the site, own and manage the homes and draw grant from Homes England’s Social and Affordable Homes Programme 2026 to 2036. Rented homes would be let under a nomination agreement with the council and its allocations policy.

One number does not reconcile between the two documents. The Affordable Housing Statement says 12% of the development meets the M4(3) wheelchair user standard. The Planning Statement says all homes meet M4(2) and two meet M4(3). Anyone commenting on accessibility should ask the council which figure is being assessed.

It is green belt, and the council is proposing to release it

The council’s own constraints record for the application lists the site as green belt under the policies of the 1998 adopted plan. That is the current designation, and it is why this application is not a routine one.

The draft Stockport Local Plan published for consultation in November 2025 proposes to change that. The planning statement says the land is identified as grey belt and put forward for housing as site HOM 2.34 Shakespeare Road, capable of “at least 150 dwellings”, under draft policy HOM 2a. Grey belt is the category introduced by the revised National Planning Policy Framework for green belt land that does not strongly serve the purposes of the designation.

The draft plan proposes a housing requirement of at least 25,371 homes between 2025 and 2042, below the 31,790 the government’s standard method produces for the borough, with a strategic affordable housing target of 50%. The plan is at an early stage, so its policies carry limited weight in deciding applications now. Our Stockport planning news page tracks where it has got to.

The applicant also argues the council cannot show anywhere near a five year housing land supply, putting it at 1.77 years using the council’s stated deliverable supply of 3,847 homes as at 1 April 2024. That is the applicant’s calculation rather than the council’s current position, but it points the same way as the Housing Delivery Test result published this month, which put Stockport at 43% of the homes government required, the lowest in Greater Manchester.

What else the council has recorded on the site

The constraints attached to the application by the council include:

Vernon Road Wood, a Grade C Site of Biological Importance, on the boundary
records of protected species on or near the land, including badger and house sparrow
the A6 to M60 protection zone, the safeguarded corridor for the long-standing relief road scheme, running along the western edge
three public rights of way, 56BR, 60BR and 61BR, abutting or crossing the site
the Goyt Valley landscape character area
an area of high surface water flood risk, a gas pipeline consultation zone and a coal development high risk area

The planning statement notes there are no current formal consents or proposals for the A6 to M60 road scheme to be taken forward, and that the western site boundary was drawn with that corridor in mind.

What it means for you

If you live on Shakespeare Road, Marlowe Walks, Hathaway Gardens or Highfield Avenue, this is the week to write in. The council wrote to 96 addresses and 49 have replied, so roughly half the consulted households have not. Objections carry weight only where they raise planning matters: highway safety and the capacity of the Marlowe Walks access, drainage and surface water, loss of green belt openness, ecology and the Site of Biological Importance, and the effect on rights of way. Loss of a view, and the identity of the future occupiers, are not planning matters.

Support is worth registering too if you want it. One comment in support has been logged against 47 objections, and a scheme of entirely social rent and shared ownership homes is unusual in the borough.

Whatever residents say, the decision will be shaped by the position Stockport is in on housing numbers. The determination deadline is 28 October, though larger applications frequently run past it.