Cabinet approved the plan on 15 September. Comments run 23 September to 8 November, and only soundness and legal compliance count at this stage.

Stockport Council’s Cabinet approved the borough’s Local Plan for publication on Tuesday 15 September. Comments open on Wednesday 23 September and close at the end of Sunday 8 November.

That is the last time the public gets to speak before the plan goes to a government inspector. The minutes of the meeting are now published (Stockport Council).

The plan itself has not changed since we set out its contents on 11 September: 24,253 homes by 2042, with 8,689 of them on 30 Green Belt sites reclassified as grey belt. What is new is the decision, the timetable that follows it, and one late amendment.

What counts as a comment, and what does not

This is the part worth reading before you write anything. A Regulation 19 consultation is not a vote on whether you like the plan. The council’s own Local Plan page puts it plainly: you will be able to comment on “whether the plan has been prepared in line with legal requirements and whether it can be considered sound” (Stockport Council).

Two of the five public questions put to Cabinet were about Green Belt and grey belt. Answering the first, the Cabinet Member for Housing and Environment, Councillor Jake Austin, told the meeting that the consultation “would focus on the legal compliance and soundness of the Plan”. The questioner was then “encouraged to frame representations broadly within those tests and to submit the matters of concern through the consultation process”.

He also said the council applies the Government’s grey belt criteria but did not write them:

  • the criteria were set nationally and have “a fundamental effect on which sites fell to be considered as grey belt”
  • the council “could not alter those national rules”
  • the same rules will be considered by the Planning Inspector at examination

So an objection that says a site should not be released because it is Green Belt is weaker than one that argues the plan is unsound: that the evidence does not support an allocation, that the infrastructure will not be there, that the flooding or highways work has not been done, or that the tests in national policy have not been applied properly.

Cabinet members were told that concerns raised by residents about traffic, flooding, schools, healthcare, infrastructure and the release of Green Belt land were “legitimate and appropriate matters for the consultation and examination processes”.

Around 7,500 representations were made at the earlier Regulation 18 stage, and the council says those responses shaped the redraft.

The one late change: Compstall Mills

Cabinet was told a minor amendment had been made to Policy HOM 2.12, Compstall Mills, to correct the wording of the policy. The corrected page was published separately alongside the agenda (Stockport Council).

The policy as it now reads puts five conditions on any redevelopment of the site:

  • mitigation for adverse impacts on Compstall Nature Reserve SSSI
  • mitigation for impacts on Ernocroft Wood, Etherow Country Park, Roach Wood (South) and Etherow Local Nature Reserve
  • about 40% of the site lies in Flood Zone 3 beside the River Etherow, so the Sequential Test applies and homes there need the Exception Test and a site-specific flood risk assessment
  • retention and conversion of the 19th century mill buildings “as far as possible”, and at minimum Albert Mill and the Scotland Mill Engine House Complex and Office
  • new building that is sympathetic to the Compstall Conservation Area in scale, form, design and materials

Why the council says it had to do this

Cabinet did not present the vote as enthusiasm for the plan. The minutes record members reiterating the council’s “longstanding preference for a brownfield-first approach and its opposition to the Government’s grey belt policy”, and describing the recommendation as “a difficult but responsible step to retain local influence over planning decisions”.

The argument for approving it was that without an up-to-date Local Plan the borough “would be exposed to a greater risk of speculative development, planning by appeal and external intervention”.

There is also a deadline. The council is under a direction from the Minister of State for Housing and Planning, issued on 16 September 2025, to get the plan done. That original direction required the Regulation 19 consultation to finish by 1 September 2026 and the plan to be submitted by 30 November 2026. The council’s chief executive wrote to the minister on 12 June 2026 asking for more time, and an amended direction was issued on 1 July 2026. The plan must now be submitted no later than 31 December 2026 (Stockport Council Cabinet report, paragraph 2.7).

One further quirk: the Government published a new National Planning Policy Framework on 17 August 2026, but its transitional arrangements mean Stockport’s plan must still be produced against the December 2024 version.

What happens after 8 November

The council has fixed three meetings to get the plan submitted before the ministerial deadline:

Date Meeting
Monday 7 December Housing, Economy and Environment Scrutiny Committee (extraordinary)
Tuesday 8 December Cabinet
Thursday 17 December Council (extraordinary)

Cabinet also delegated authority to the Assistant Director for Place Making and Planning, in consultation with the Leader and the Cabinet Member for Housing and Environment, to make minor amendments before the consultation opens, such as correcting typographical errors or updating links to evidence documents.

What it means for you

  • Comments open on Wednesday 23 September and close on Sunday 8 November. There is no extension after that, because the plan has to be submitted by 31 December.
  • Write about soundness and legal compliance. That is the test the inspector will apply. Evidence, infrastructure, flood risk and whether national policy has been followed carry weight; “we do not want this” does not.
  • Check your own area first. The plan’s site allocations, including the 30 grey belt sites, are in Appendix i and the Policies Map, both published with the Cabinet papers. That is currently the only place to read them.
  • The council’s own documents page is not ready yet. Its September 2026 Regulation 19 page was updated on 17 September and still says details of the consultation and “information about how to take part” will appear “when available”.
  • Sign up for the alert if you do not want to keep checking. The council runs a Local Plan email list. We will add the comment link here and to our Stockport planning news page as soon as it goes live.

The supporting evidence, including the updated Strategic Flood Risk Assessment, Open Space Assessment, Employment Land Review and Infrastructure Delivery Plan, is on the council’s planning policy evidence pages at stockport.gov.uk/evidence-planning-policy.

Sources