Graham, Tom and Ian

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Barnes Hospital development approved

by Lib Dem team on 25 July, 2013

Barnes Hospital

Stockport’s Planning and Highways committee has voted to grant the planning permission which will save Cheadle’s iconic Barnes Hospital for the future.

The building has been falling into disrepair and may soon have been beyond recovery.  This plan sees the hospital converted into flats, with more houses and flats built on the site around it as “enabling development” – to make the project stack up financially.

Included in the development is improving the paths from Barnes Hospital to Cheadle (underway at the moment) and also adding cycle parking at Gatley Station. Cars will enter and leave the Barnes site directly onto Kingsway at the current entrance, north of the Gatley lights.

As ever, no development is perfect and more houses mean more traffic. It will also mean more trade for local shops, more construction jobs and more much-needed local homes and I’m strongly of the view that this is good for Cheadle and Gatley on balance.

Planning application isn’t the same as building, so now we need the developers to get to work on site and save Barnes Hospital.

   6 Comments

6 Responses

  1. Robert Taggart says:

    Will believe it when tha sees it !

  2. David Brown says:

    This is not good for the residents of Cheadle (but who considers them?)

    It is acknowledged that the existing traffic at the Gatley/Cheadle/Kingsway junction is dreadful, this will only add to it.

    I’ll put money on it that either the traffic into and out of the new site will traffic light controlled, or it will be blocked (due to safety) from turning right onto Kingsway (as happened at the Broadway Kingsway junction some years ago).

  3. Penny says:

    I can understand traffic concerns but we mustn’t forget that Barnes was once a large and busy local hospital with quite a lot of traffic coming and going anyway. I think it’s great for Cheadle and will surely encourage more shops and restaurants and nice bars to cater for the new residents. Fingers crossed for building permission!

  4. David Brown says:

    Penny – the last time Barnes was a busy local hospital was before the A34 by-pass – traffic has increased massively since then.

    In addition, how will the local primary school cope? At Cheadle Primary my children were in classed that were in excess of 40. Cheadle primary achieved the distinction of having one of the largest class size in the UK (top 1%). So how will it cope if we add several hundred homes/families to the equation?

    I feel the whole idea is not something the residents in Gatley and Cheadle would support. But unfortunately our view isn’t considered.

    BTW – I understand that 1000 homes have been approved/being approved for the old Woodford site – guess where much of that traffic up?

  5. Sam says:

    I think saving the building from falling down, and hopefully restoring it to be a beautiful landmark is a wonderful idea. I guess the developers see that converting it into homes as the most profitable solution. If it was a choice between the building disappearing forever or converting it into homes, then I think the homes idea is fantastic.

    Perhaps the developers would consider converting one of the buildings (I believe the site is made up of one main buildings and some smaller separate buildings) into a school/building a school as part of the site if none of the current buildings are suitable. This would ease the pressure on the current schools and would provide more jobs for local teachers, support staff, administrators and cleaners.

    The increase in traffic is a concern, but the population in this country is expanding all the time, which means traffic volume is increasing anyway. Whether these additional people are traveling to Barnes hospital site or somewhere else in South Manchester via the A34 probably won’t make a difference. If they want to be in Manchester, they want to be in Manchester. Perhaps we should all take to bicycles to ease congestion considering they take up far less space than cars.

    Personally I think the opportunities far outweigh the negative points.

  6. John Robinson says:

    Oh please. Not more housing.

    The A34 – Gatley Road junction is already a disaster (after the council, in its wisdom, having spent no telling how many thousands on re-arranging it). More traffic serving housing on the Barnes Hospital site will only make things worse.

    How about a restaurant?

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