TEN years ago residents of Culcheth and Glazebury discovered that they could be losing large areas of open land to the north and east of Culcheth to development.

A packed meeting at Culcheth High School the following January amalgamated the residents and the Parish Council into Culcheth and Glazebury Action Group. Hundreds were unable to get into the meeting and the strong feelings aroused against development were seen on Granada TV.

Six years of campaigning later, the Borough Council supported the residents by putting all this land into the Green Belt in the Draft Local Plan.

With reference to the letter from R.F. Harper in last week'sGUARDIAN, last year the Inspector from the Local Plan Inquiry recommended that 59 acres of land this year, at Twiss Green Farm, should become an Area of Search for housing - more land was needed because Cheshire 2011 had allocated 1,600 more houses to Warrington than were in the original draft plan. The Borough Council has yet to decide on the recommendations.

In the meantime 650 windfall houses have ensured that Culcheth can only be described as "full".

This new area of search is additional to one of similar size at Culcheth West and taking them together the result could be 900 houses, a huge rise in the size of an already overcrowded village. This additional community would swamp local facilities.

The Action Group continues to work with the support of the residents to oppose the development of green fields. When we started we didn't realise that we would still be here 10 years later!

MRS J. JOHNSON

Secretary of C&GAG

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.