For several months (and well before recent inaccurate media coverage) a team of us has been working hard to plan a positive future for a piece of land in Someford, near Congleton in Cheshire. The land in question was generously left to the RSPB by the late Mrs Lavinia Rhead.

The future of this land is not just important to us but also to the people living close near it – the more so because of the intense development pressure in the area.

The options for enhancing our land for wildlife with the full involvement of the local community are genuinely exciting – but we are not yet in a position to be precise about the details, we are increasingly confident of an outcome that would have made Mrs Rhead proud.

Cheshire East Council (the local authority) have identified the whole of Mrs Rhead’s land and surrounding farmland for development in their draft Local Plan.  We know that two of the neighbouring landowners have already signed a deal with a development promoter and that a planning application for this land would be very likely to be successful as Cheshire East Council seek to approve applications in line with the draft Local Plan in order to avoid unplanned development elsewhere.

Passions run high – for obvious reasons – and this issue has been subject to some inaccurate and intemperate media coverage (this earlier blog refers). What we have been trying to do all along is to find a solution which will benefit wildlife, meet the needs of the local community and, most importantly, honour Mrs Rhead’s wishes.  This statement from Somerford Parish Council’s website will give you a sense of where we have got to in our discussions;

Somerford Parish Council have recently had a very positive meeting with the RSPB and are hopeful that we can together arrive at a solution which will result is a substantial part of the land in question becoming a significant green asset for wildlife and the community’.

Here’s a link to the latest article in the Congleton Chronicle (the website requires you to sign up) – which highlights the cooperation with the Parish Council but speculates on the potential outcomes of our discussions – this makes assumptions which are not accurate particularly in relation to the amount of land that will be made available as accessible greenspace and enhanced for wildlife including the potential for additional greenspace serving the wider development.

As we’ve been at pains to point out throughout this process – no decisions have yet been made and the next steps will be taken in full collaboration with the Parish Council.

Nature and the local community to benefit from plans to give nature a home in Somerford . Photo by Andre Farrar

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