5th January 2026
Over a decade ago, residents of North Reddish raised alarms about the council’s proposed Harcourt Street school project. Today, those same concerns — traffic, contamination, loss of public open space, rising costs, and insufficient school size — resonate again as Stockport Council prepares to consider plans for 30,000 new homes on the borough’s green belt.
At the heart of the Harcourt Street controversy was Sheila Oliver, a local resident and campaigner, who questioned council decisions long before the school opened in 2011. She repeatedly flagged that the site was a former clay pit and landfill and likely contaminated.
“The GMGU report said the site was safe if simple precautions were taken,” she recalled. “But proper testing later revealed lead, arsenic, and brown asbestos across the land.”
Despite this, the council pressed ahead, and the school opened without the promised playing fields. Costs escalated from £5.4 million in 2005 to nearly £10 million before contamination remediation. Facilities demanded by Sport England, which she had personally helped secure, were added at significant cost, reducing the funds available for the school itself.
Traffic and Safety Concerns Ignored
Residents also raised the risks posed by local roads to schoolchildren. Independent reports and local feedback later confirmed that traffic impact had been underestimated, validating warnings Oliver issued years before.
Loss of Public Space and Accountability
The project also reduced access to public green space. While some landscaping and facilities remain, the council’s original promise of community-accessible fields was never fully delivered. Oliver repeatedly sought transparency, using Freedom of Information requests and formal correspondence, yet she remains barred from raising the issue in council meetings or communicating with councillors about the project.
“Traffic, contamination, loss of green space, rising costs, and insufficient capacity — all of these warnings were proven true,” she said. “And I’m still not allowed to discuss them officially with the council, the Chief Executive, or local representatives.”
A Modern Parallel: Green Belt Threats
Now, many of the same council officers and elected members who oversaw Harcourt Street are proposing housing developments that would build 30,000 homes on the green belt. Residents fear that history may repeat itself: rushed decision-making, insufficient scrutiny, and diminished public accountability.
For North Reddish and surrounding areas, the Harcourt Street saga is more than history. It is a cautionary tale of what happens when public money, public land, and public safety are not rigorously protected — and why local voices, even those proven right, must not be silenced.
“We can’t afford to be ignored again,” Oliver said. “Our green spaces, our safety, and our communities deserve more than repeated mistakes.”
