Adlington

Cheshire Wildlife Trust is concerned about recently announced plans to create a ‘new town’ in Adlington, a small village on the edge of the Peak District National Park.

The development could result in up to 20,000 houses being built on greenbelt, which is likely to put a strain on the neighbouring rural communities of the Peak District and its fringe, including Pott Shrigley, Whitely Green, Prestbury and the small towns of Bollington and Poynton.

The proposals are also likely to impact the wider countryside and its habitats. The Adlington Estate has largely been under the same ownership for the past 700 years, which has helped preserve a traditional landscape of small fields with high hedgerows, in-field trees and ponds across the parish. With close to triple the woodland coverage compared to the rest of Cheshire, the Adlington area has a particularly high number of pockets of woodlands between fields and along brooks that are home to birds, mammals, insects and fungi. In addition to its traditional function of preventing urban sprawl, the Greenbelt around Adlington is also a crucial corridor for the movement of wildlife. Its hedgerows, woodlands, and streams form a network of habitats that connects the Peak District with the Cheshire Plain, allowing species to move through the landscape, feed and reproduce.

Cheshire Wildlife Trust supports sustainable development that avoids impacts to the most valuable habitats and integrates nature into its design. We support the Taskforce recommendations for new towns to ‘’protect, restore and enhance biodiversity’’, but it is clear that this would be unachievable in this location. Due to the scale of the development and the density of habitats, avoiding impacts to woodlands, hedgerows and ponds would be challenging and unrealistic. We hope that this comes through in the results of the Strategic Environmental Assessment that will be required to assess the viability of the proposals, and that the outstanding wildlife value of this area of Cheshire is accounted for when compared to other sites put forward. Any decision must reflect the value of the natural heritage and the quality of the landscape that are so important for the wildlife and people of the region. 

Below you will find links to the New Town Taskforce Report and the Governments' response.

The final link is to contact the local councillors from Adlington to express your concerns for the proposed development.