CPRE responds to draft Liverpool City Region Spatial Development Strategy

CPRE Cheshire and CPRE Lancashire, Liverpool City Region and Greater Manchester have submitted a joint response to the Liverpool City Region Spatial Development Strategy stage 3 consultation

What we welcome

We welcome the focus on environmental and social drivers, including:

• positive climate resilience action
• brownfield first policy – regeneration of urban places should rightly be at the heart of the spatial strategy
• enhancement of biodiversity
• improvement of environmental health to address health inequalities and deprivation

Issues we highlighted

We set out overarching comments concerning rural planning relevant to the integration of strategic transport infrastructure, including better rail freight to the Port of Liverpool to avoid ‘needless harm’ to Rimrose Valley (a well-loved country park in Sefton).

We made detailed comments regarding the benefits of ‘countryside next door’ including the Green Belt around Halton, Knowlsey, and St Helens. Too much greenfield land has already been allowed for development, and caution should be shown.

Protecting and enhancing the coastline of Liverpool, Sefton, and Wirral with the internationally recognised ecological designations must also be a priority.

In addition, we called for:

• more ambition for affordable housing
• more ambition for solar PV on rooftops
• less nibbling at ecological and planning designations designed to protect nature and to keep land open on a permanent basis

More information

Full CPRE response to the Liverpool City Region stage 3 consultation

Spatial Planning | Liverpool City Region Combined Authority 

The consultation is now closed, so we await the next steps with interest.