Sheila Oliver
Editor of the Romiley Gazette
Other books by this author
The “Vexatious? Moi?” series:
Book 1: Harcourt Street and Vale View Primary School
Book 2: Padden Brook
Book 3: The Bent Bypass (the A555/SEMMMS Manchester Airport Relief Road)
Book 4: Sandringham Road
Book 5: Offerton Precinct
Book 6: Marple Money (the Marple Active Communities Hub)
Book 7: The Wall of Silence — How Stockport Council Blocks the Questions It Doesn’t Want to Answer
Book 8: The Foggbrook Files
Book 9: Arms Length — The Story of Stockport’s Own Companies
Book 10: For Hire — The Consultants Councils Can’t Refuse
Book 11: The Price of Civic Duty — How Stockport Council Spent While It Cut
Book 12: Paying The Piper: Stockport’s MPs And The Price Of Public Money
Book 13: Lessons In Privacy. How Stockport Grammar School Learned To Ask For Forgiveness Rather Than Permission
Book 14: Three Floors Or Four. Aquinas College, Nangreave Road. The Development No-One Living Opposite Asked For.
Book 15: Extra Large. Tesco, Tiviot Way, Portwood. The store that was built bigger than agreed, and the committee that said no.
And, outside the series:
Learning Law From a Lawless Council (Stockport) — the Michael Parnell case
Contents
Introduction: Be Always Prepared
1. The Building
2. The Application
3. Whose Land Is It Anyway?
4. No Room at the Inn
5. Counting Spaces
6. Howard Close
7. Monday at Ten
8. Traffic vs. Bins
9. Housing Need: The Allegation, the Record and the Denial
10. The Paper Trail
11. The Decision Notice
12. Questions the Council Must Answer
13. What Can Still Be Done
Epilogue
Appendix A: Timeline
Introduction: Be Always Prepared
On the wall of the old Hatherlow Sunday School there is a sundial, dated 1814, with a three-word motto: Be always prepared.
It is good advice for a Sunday School pupil. It is better advice for a planning authority.
This book is about a single planning application: DC/083741, to convert the former Hatherlow Church Hall, a historic building at Hatherlow, Romiley, into eleven apartments. The scheme has no car parking spaces at all and no disabled parking. Its Transport Statement says that the residents’ cars will be absorbed by the surrounding streets, chiefly Howard Close, Green Lane and Overdale Road. Stockport Council approved it.
I want to know how.
I should say plainly what this book is not. I am a campaigner and an editor, not a traffic engineer or a lawyer. I do not claim the decision was unlawful. A council can lawfully approve flats without parking, and the Council’s standards are maximums, not minimums. I claim something narrower, and I think more useful: that the evidence relied on to say the streets could cope is thin, that it was gathered at the wrong times, that it contradicts itself in places, and that the questions members and residents raised were answered with assurances rather than proof. Where the Council has said something different, I print it. Where I cannot prove something, I say so.
The short version
- The scheme provides no parking. The Transport Statement makes no provision for disabled parking. The officers’ Update to Members says the conversion has none, adding that for a new build “we would be looking for disabled parking”.
- The first version of the parking case relied on the pub car park. The Council pointed out that the applicant did not control it. A fresh parking survey was commissioned.
- The Transport Statement says that survey was done on Sunday 16 July 2023 (early morning and mid-afternoon) and on Tuesday 18 July 2023 between midnight and 5am. The officer report told members it was done “in the evening and on Sunday”, reflecting the pub’s visitors. The two descriptions do not match, and neither is an evening when the pub is open and the church has an event on.
- On the applicant’s own figures, Howard Close has only 11 counted spaces and was 82% full in the small hours of that Tuesday, leaving two free spaces.
- The report’s headline of roughly 50 free spaces depends on Overdale Road, which supplied roughly 70% of them.
- The Decision Notice, issued on 20 October 2025, has no condition on parking, highways, construction traffic or accessible parking.
- The Section 106 draft secures £43,384 for open space anywhere in the Borough, and nothing for affordable housing or highways. The officer report said the agreement should include a clawback clause. I cannot find one.
- The Section 106 itself records that the freeholder of part of the site is “unknown”.
- The committee heard extended debate about bins, and the record shows it also discussed traffic. The Council denies that members were misled.
Then there are the photographs. They are in Chapter 6, and I would ask you to look at them before you decide what you think.
1. The Building
The Hatherlow Sunday School is older than most of the arguments about it. The nonconformist chapel at Hatherlow dates from 1706. From May 1817 the site was used as a Sunday School, with the first sessions held at School Brow and later at the “Top School” on Gorsey Brow. An extension of 1862 added classrooms.
It was never only a schoolroom. The building housed the Bredbury Amicable Subscription Library, founded in 1822, and the Hatherlow Botanical Society. It was rebuilt in 1911, and the builders reused the salvaged belfry of 1792 and the sundial of 1814. Its former members appear in the Imperial War Museum’s memorial database.
In the planning papers it goes by two names. The register gives the address as Hatherlow Sunday School and describes the proposal as the conversion of an existing disused former Church Hall. The applicant’s Transport Statement calls it Hatherlow Church Hall and measures its gross floor area at about 728 square metres. The officer report gives the space as approximately 643 square metres. It is the same building. It had been standing empty for years when the proposal came forward.
The United Reformed Church (URC) sold it. As far as I can see, the sale carried no restrictions on future development, and the hall had been cleared out beforehand. Who bought it is less simple than I first thought. The plans and Transport Statement are for OMD Properties Ltd, the Decision Notice names Jason Davy as applicant, and the Section 106 names a different company, Bingley UK Developments Limited, as the owner (Chapters 2 and 3).
2. The Application
The Council’s planning register records the basics for DC/083741 (portal reference PP-10482907):
| Item | Detail |
| Proposal | Conversion of an existing disused former Church Hall to form 11 apartments, with associated demolition, external alterations and landscaping |
| Received | 17 December 2021 |
| Validated | 14 September 2022 |
| Decision | Granted — Decision Notice issued 20 October 2025 |
| Documents on file | 32 |
| Applicant (per Decision Notice) | Jason Davy |
| Agent | Bernard Taylor Partnership Ltd, Heaton Mersey |
| Owner named in the Section 106 | Bingley UK Developments Limited (company no. 12851676) |
| Appeal status | Not available |
From receipt to decision took almost four years. From validation it took just over three. Seven of the eleven flats are maisonettes and four are single-storey apartments.
The developer
OMD Properties Ltd (company number 13154054) is the client named on the architect’s plans and in the Transport Statement. Jason Davy, named as applicant on the Decision Notice, is an active director on the public record. I set out the following from the company’s filed accounts, not to suggest anything improper, because property companies borrow routinely, but because the Council relied on the scheme’s finances when it excused the developer from affordable housing. These are figures for the whole company, not for the Hatherlow scheme alone.
| Balance sheet item (£) | 31 January 2024 | 30 June 2025 |
| Investment property | 2,415,162 | 10,742,936 |
| Debtors | 297,172 | 841,598 |
| Cash at bank and in hand | 12,731 | 81,909 |
| Current assets | 309,903 | 923,507 |
| Creditors due within one year | 1,456,354 | 5,528,504 |
| Net current liabilities | 1,146,451 | 4,604,997 |
| Creditors due after more than one year | 1,008,628 | 5,735,878 |
| Net assets (= total equity) | 260,110 | 402,088 |
Source: OMD Properties Ltd, accounts as at 30 June 2025, balance sheet, Companies House.
My own arithmetic from those figures:
- Total liabilities are about £11.26 million (£5,528,504 plus £5,735,878), against equity of £402,088, so roughly 28 times equity. At the earlier balance sheet the figures were about £2.46 million and £260,110.
- Current assets cover about 17p of every £1 due within a year (it was about 21p).
- Investment property rose more than fourfold, from £2.4 million to £10.7 million, in the 17 months between the two balance sheet dates, while net assets rose by roughly 55%.
- Charges: at my earlier check the register showed nine outstanding charges, registered between 2021 and 2025, with lenders including Shawbrook Bank, Paragon Bank, Topaz Finance, Fleet Mortgages and Yorkshire Building Society, against properties in Wakefield, Rotherham, Normanton and Leeds.
The Council accepted that the scheme was “entirely debt-financed” and that requiring affordable homes could threaten its viability. It therefore waived the usual affordable housing requirement. I have asked, and will go on asking, to see the viability assessment.
Two cautions
First, heavy borrowing against property is ordinary for a property investor, and a balance sheet like this proves nothing improper. Second, I cannot tell from the balance sheet page alone whether the Hatherlow building is included in the investment property figure, or what makes up the £841,598 of debtors. Those answers are in the notes to the accounts.
The question I think the Council should answer is a narrow one. A viability assessment looks at a scheme. Did anyone at the Council consider the developer’s wider position, or the fact that the company’s borrowing had grown so quickly, before accepting that affordable housing could not be afforded? It may be that there is a sound answer. I would like to see it.
Viability and the clawback
The officer report says the applicant submitted a viability appraisal arguing that the scheme would not be viable if affordable housing were required, that the Council’s appointed surveyor reviewed it, and that a case had been made. It adds that any permission should come with a Section 106 including a clawback clause, so that a contribution could be secured if the scheme proved more profitable than envisaged. I cannot find a clawback clause in the draft Section 106 I hold (Chapter 11).
Whose finances?
The accounts above are OMD’s. The owner bound by the Section 106 is Bingley UK Developments Limited. I do not know how the two companies are connected, and I have not seen Bingley’s accounts. Companies House lists four officers and two resignations for Bingley; the entries I have seen include Shetu Miah, listed as secretary since 2 September 2020.
3. Whose Land Is It Anyway?
A planning application must say who owns the land. Here the answer is less settled than it should be, and the Council’s own papers say so.
What residents told the Council
The officer report records objections from 20 properties. Several concerned the land in front of the building: that it lies outside the applicant’s ownership and its ownership is unknown, that the pub and nearby businesses claim rights to park there, and that it should not be relied on to meet the scheme’s parking needs. At the Area Committee, members asked for clarification about who owns that parcel. The report advised members that private ownership and access rights are not material planning considerations.
What the Section 106 says
The draft Section 106 names the owner as Bingley UK Developments Limited, registered proprietor of freehold title MAN108197 and leasehold title MAN108147. Recital (B) then says the land derives from an unregistered freehold title and that “The Freeholder of which is unknown.” The definition of the Site says it comprises both unregistered and registered land.
Clause 12.1 is a warranty. The Owner promises that nobody other than itself and “any person who has an interest in the unregistered land” has any legal or equitable interest in the Site, and that it has tried to find the owner of the unregistered land, including by placing a notice in the Romiley and Marple Post asking the freeholder to come forward.
Read plainly, a document the Council made with the developer accepts that part of the site belongs to an unknown freeholder, and the only effort it records to find that person is a newspaper notice. In my earlier reporting I noted that two small patches of land linked to the site could not be confirmed as the developer’s. The Council’s own agreement now says as much.
What the Transport Statement says
The applicant’s Transport Statement describes a car park to the south of the site as one “in which ownership is unknown” (paragraph 2.1), used mostly by users of the church hall and the Spread Eagle. Paragraph 3.4 records that the Highway Authority confirmed this car park was not owned by the applicant or by the Highway Authority. The site plan shows the bin collection point beside the car park in front of the building, about 30 metres from the bin store.
What I draw from this
Officers are right that ownership is generally a private matter, and I do not claim it was a lawful ground for refusal. My point is narrower. The scheme’s parking assumptions and its bin collection both touch land that the applicant either does not own or has not shown it owns. The owner’s warranty is only as good as its search. And the agreement does not say what happens if the freeholder appears. I am not a lawyer; these are questions.
4. No Room at the Inn
The Transport Statement was prepared for OMD Properties by Mewies Engineering Consultants, of Hugglescote in Leicestershire. The version before the committee is rev B, dated August 2023. It runs to 22 pages of text and a number of appendices, and the revision table tells most of the story. Revision A (February 2023) was “amended to address comments raised by Stockport Council”. Revision B was produced “amending for parking survey results”.
The parking policy
Stockport’s Unitary Development Plan Review 2006 sets a maximum of two spaces per dwelling, which for eleven flats comes to 22 (paragraph 3.3). The statement then says, in paragraph 3.4, that the development “will provide no vehicle parking within the site” and will rely on parking nearby.
The pub car park
The first plan was that residents would use the car park in front of the building. In paragraph 3.4 the report says the Highway Authority confirmed this was not owned by the applicant or by the Highway Authority and so could not be counted. Paragraph 3.5 adds that the pub car park could not be made the subject of a condition because the client could not guarantee spaces there. A second survey was therefore commissioned, of the streets within 200 metres.
Yet paragraph 3.14 still says there would be sufficient parking for eleven vehicles “either within the public house car park, or within the closest residential streets”. The report has told us twice that the pub car park cannot be relied on. It then relies on it.
Betterment
The report also argues that the flats would be an improvement. Using the TRICS database it estimates that a 728 sq m place of worship would generate 148 two-way vehicle movements over a twelve-hour weekday and 116 at weekends, against 47 for the flats. Under the old standards such a hall could have had 147 parking spaces. Hence, it says, the proposal “will provide betterment” (paragraph 3.15).
This compares the flats with a hypothetical full use of a building that had been standing empty. It also gives no weight to what actually happens on Howard Close today, with a working pub and a working church next door. The officer report adopted the same reasoning, pointing to the former lawful use as a Sunday School and community hall and to traffic that could arise “should the hall reopen”.
Smaller things
Several details suggest the report was not carefully edited. Table 2.1 puts Romiley station 1,100 metres away and 15 minutes’ walk, while paragraph 2.19 says 750 metres. The appendix letters in the text are one out from the contents list, with the weekend traffic data cited as an Appendix J that the contents does not include, and the text refers to “Table 7” and “Table 8”, which do not exist. The bus timetable data were taken in November 2021. The collision data cover only 2016 to 2020. None of this is sinister. But when the Council’s committee was told that the data were “adequate”, it was relying on this document.
Ms Bates’s letter records the committee being told that the site is accessible by public transport, with a train station and shops a short walk away. The applicant’s own table puts the station at 15 minutes’ walk. The 383 bus runs every 20 to 60 minutes; the other two services listed run twice a day on school days.
5. Counting Spaces
The key evidence is a “Lambeth” parking beat survey carried out by Nationwide Data Collection. The method counts the parked cars on each road and compares them with the number of spaces, which the surveyor works out broadly from the length of kerb that is neither a driveway nor under yellow lines. The result is a “parking stress” percentage. The survey’s own colour key puts 80% and above in its highest band.
The statement says the survey was done on Sunday 16 July 2023 (early morning and mid-afternoon) and on Tuesday 18 July 2023 between 00:00 and 05:00, with the scope “agreed with SMBC prior to instruction” (paragraph 3.6). So the Council itself agreed the times. The three streets treated as most convenient were Howard Close, Green Lane and Overdale Road. Here are the applicant’s figures.
| Street | Counted spaces | Sunday 16 July — day beat (cars / stress / free) | Sunday 16 July — night beat (cars / stress / free) | Tuesday 18 July, 00:00–05:00 (cars / stress / free) |
| Green Lane | 18 | 7 / 39% / 11 | 6 / 33% / 12 | 5 / 28% / 13 |
| Howard Close | 11 | 8 / 73% / 3 | 7 / 64% / 4 | 9 / 82% / 2 |
| Overdale Road | 44 | 9 / 20% / 35 | 9 / 20% / 35 | 9 / 20% / 35 |
| Total | 73 | 24 / 49 free | 22 / 51 free | 23 / 50 free |
Source: Transport Statement rev B, Figures 3.2 and 3.3 and its own Appendix D. “Free” is my arithmetic from the report’s counts. The statement’s own Sunday labels differ slightly (the figure says “Night”; the text says early morning).
What the numbers say
- The headline is paragraph 3.8: 49 spaces free on Sunday afternoon, 51 on Sunday morning and 50 on the weekday. Paragraph 3.9 treats that as enough for the 22 spaces the maximum standard would allow.
- But about 70% of those free spaces are on one road. Overdale Road has 35 free in every survey out of 49, 51 and 50.
- Howard Close is one of the three streets the report treats as most convenient, and it is nearly full. In the small hours of a Tuesday it had two free spaces. The report’s “worst case” is eleven vehicles (paragraph 3.13). That is exactly the number of spaces counted on the whole of Howard Close.
- The surveyor wrote “Narrow Road” on the Howard Close sheets, at two points, one on each side. As I read the sheets, all eleven counted spaces are on the west side.
When the survey was not done
A Lambeth survey is designed to measure residents’ own overnight demand, and for that purpose a night-time beat is typical. That is why the Tuesday figure is so telling: Howard Close is already 82% full from its existing residents alone.
But the problem I describe in this book does not arise at 3am. It arises when the Spread Eagle is open and the church has an event on. The statement itself says the car park beside the site is used mainly by church hall and pub users. As the report describes the surveys, none was done on a weekday or weekend evening when the pub was trading, or at a time when there was a funeral or other service. A survey can be timed to catch a funeral or a busy night. This one was not.
There is a further point of logic. The people who live in flats and go out to work are typically away during the day. They come home in the evening, which is also when the pub fills up. Their cars are parked at night and at weekends, and those are the times when the available kerb space is shortest. The report does not consider this overlap.
As for the eleven-vehicle estimate: the method assumes two adults in every flat, which is cautious, but applies 2011 Census figures for all flats in the ward, whatever their tenure. I cannot say whether eleven is right. I can say that whatever the number, it will mostly be parked when the pub and the church are at their busiest.
How the survey was described to members
The officer report and the highway engineer’s consultee response describe the survey in the same terms: parking surveys “were undertaken in the evening and on Sunday”, reflecting when residents are home from work and the likely effect of pub visitors.
That is not how the Transport Statement describes it. Its own text (paragraph 3.6) gives Sunday early morning and mid-afternoon, and a Tuesday beat between midnight and 5am. The Sunday survey sheets are headed only “Night & Day”. None of those descriptions is an evening on which a pub is trading.
The Update to Members adds that the survey found room “for 22 cars”, against demand for 11. Twenty-two is the upper figure the Transport Statement tested, two per flat, not a count by street. As far as I can see, members were not told that most of the free spaces were on Overdale Road, or that Howard Close had two to four free.
The Update also concedes that planned highway works will take parking away. It describes a new toucan crossing, no-waiting restrictions along Hursteads Lane, and closure of the lower part of the lane to vehicles, and says on-street parking on Hatherlow itself would be reduced. It argues that these areas lie outside the area in which the survey found free space. The Area Committee had asked the site visit to look at Howard Close, Overdale Road and “Hurstheads” (the report’s spelling). The Transport Statement singles out Howard Close, Green Lane and Overdale Road as the most convenient streets. Hursteads Lane is not among those three.
Finally, the report records an objection that flat residents parking on Howard Close would create a hazard and cause “issues with emergency vehicles”. I can find no answer to the emergency-vehicle point in the Analysis section.
6. Howard Close
I have told the Council that the roads around the pub and the church fill up when there is trade and an event. The Council’s answer has been that the survey showed capacity. So I went and looked.
I have to be upfront about the evidence. Seven of these photographs are not dated: I do not know when they were taken. They are not proof of how often the street looks like this. What they show is how the street behaves when it is busy, and what the cars do when there is nowhere to put them. Figure 8, at the end of the chapter, is dated.
The junction by the Spread Eagle
The road at this point is a bend, with a junction, tactile paving, dashed give-way lines and double yellow lines all within a few metres. There is almost no margin for a vehicle that is stopped where it should not be.
Cars along the bend
When there is nowhere left
That is the point. This is the residents’ own demand, at the start of an ordinary evening, before a single customer has come for the pub or a single mourner for the church. Members noted at the site visit that most surrounding properties have driveways. The picture shows driveways in use and kerbside parking as well. The streets are already carrying that load. The flats would add to it, with no off-street space for a single car.
| A fair warning Photographs of busy moments invite the answer that they are unrepresentative. |
7. Monday at Ten
The Werneth Area Committee considered the application on 29 July 2024. Its members were concerned about on-street parking and the lack of parking provision. As Ms Bates’s letter explains, a site visit by the Planning and Highways Regulation Committee (PHRC) was then arranged “as suggested by Werneth Area Committee”, to see the parking situation, the proposed crossing and the development in its setting.
The officer report’s own record of the Area Committee agrees. Members resolved to refer the application for a site visit with specific regard to on-street parking, naming Howard Close, Overdale Road and Hurstheads.
The visit took place on Monday 12 August 2024, leaving the civic complex at 10am. That is a time when, I believe, the pub was closed and most residents were at work. My criticism was that it could not show what happens when the pub is open and the church has an event on.
| The Council’s explanation Ms Bates wrote to me on 28 August 2024 that PHRC site visits always take place on the Monday of the committee’s week, setting off at 10am, because officers’ and members’ availability requires it and several visits are often fitted into the day. She did not accept that the timing was chosen to avoid peak conditions. I have no evidence of intent, and I do not allege it. My point is about effect: a fixed Monday-morning slot can never show the conditions residents complain of, and the Council could have added an evening visit. |
What members saw and were told
Ms Bates’s letter records the following comments on the visit, which I report as she does:
- Members noted that Otterspool Road has increased congestion at peak times.
- Asked whether resident concerns about the traffic survey had been considered, they were told that two surveys had given “adequate” data.
- Asked whether residents would depend on cars, they were told that the site is accessible by public transport, with a train station and shops a short walk away.
- Members remarked that most surrounding properties have driveways rather than on-road parking.
- Members were told the side windows overlooking neighbours would be obscure-glazed and, according to Ms Bates’s letter, saw nothing on the visit to suggest the survey was inaccurate.
Her letter also records a remark about “Howard Road”. The street is Howard Close. I note it because the letter describing the committee’s visit gets wrong the name of the street the parking case turns on.
The officer report included a detailed highway officer assessment which raised no objection subject to conditions.
8. Traffic vs. Bins
The Planning and Highways Regulation Committee met on Thursday 15 August 2024. I complained, before referring the matter to the Ombudsman, that the meeting had not properly considered traffic and bin storage. It is only fair to say that the record shows it considered both at some length. These are the contributions Ms Bates’s letter cites, with the audio timestamps she gives.
On traffic
- Cllr Wendy Meikle (0:09:03) said the scheme felt overdeveloped and that she remained concerned about the traffic it would generate.
- Cllr Sue Glithero (0:09:53) said the Area Committee had asked the site visit to look only at parking, and described houses with driveways and nearby on-street parking as adequate.
- Cllr Liz Crix (0:14:07) said that the nearby parking, together with the station, bus services, supermarket, pub and church, meant not everyone would need a car.
- Cllr Mark Jones (0:15:18) said the Area Committee’s focus had been parking, that the Transport Statement covered many more roads than the three in the report, that nothing on the visit had contradicted it, and that parking “cannot be deemed to be an issue that would warrant refusal”.
On bins
The highway officer’s report gave exact volumes for eleven apartments: 1,980 litres of paper and card, 1,980 litres of paper, cans, glass and plastics, 1,540 litres of residual waste and 253 litres of food waste. It noted that the bin collection point is not immediately accessible from the highway and involves a step, and suggested ramped access. The planning officer’s report said refuse arrangements were acceptable subject to evidence of storage space, to be secured by condition.
- Cllr Meikle (0:07:05) asked how collection would work when the only rear-courtyard access was a small, locked front gate that she could not get through on the visit, and whether the six bins in the report could cope with eleven apartments.
- Planning officer Suzanne Broomhead (0:08:02) confirmed the side path is only about a metre wide and said that smaller receptacles would be wheeled out by residents, as in other Stockport developments.
- Cllr Meikle (0:08:22) said that she alone, as a single person, produces four bins’ worth of waste, doubted six bins would do for up to 22 residents, and warned that extra bins would turn the courtyard into a bin yard.
- Cllr Graham Greenhalgh (0:12:57) praised the external design and said that allowing bin storage at the front would be the “worst possible mistake”.
Ms Bates concludes that she is satisfied the members considered traffic and bin storage sufficiently. Some had reservations, but on balance the committee approved.
What I make of it
I have changed my mind on one thing. My earlier writing implied that traffic got a brief hearing. It did not; several members spoke on it. My complaint is different: that the traffic question was answered with assurances rather than evidence. Members were told the data were adequate, that the station was a short walk away, and that parking could not be a reason to refuse. As far as Ms Bates’s account shows, nobody asked what the survey did not measure. My own account of what the planning officer said in reply to members’ traffic concerns is in Chapter 9.
And note the contrast in tone. The bins were measured to the litre. The cars were not measured at all at the times that matter.
Cllr Greenhalgh’s “worst possible mistake” was bin storage at the front. Bins are not to be stored there, but the Transport Statement (paragraph 3.18) has them moved to the front on collection days, next to a car park that the applicant is not shown to own.
9. Housing Need: The Allegation, the Record and the Denial
This chapter concerns the most serious claim I have made about the meetings, and the one on which I must be most careful, because the best evidence for it, the webcast, is no longer available to me.
The allegation
I have said that councillors were told that the need for housing outweighed traffic concerns, and that local ward councillors dropped their objections on the strength of that advice. In correspondence, I put it this way:
“The issue of the need for housing does not take precedence over any genuine traffic concerns, and you yourself have admitted this in writing to me.”
My account of what happened is this. It was the Planning and Highways Regulation Committee on 15 August 2024. Councillors raised traffic issues, and the planning officer said that housing need was more relevant than traffic issues.
What the written record does show
The officer report is a public document, and housing supply runs through it. It states that Stockport has 3.78 years of housing supply against a requirement of five years plus 20%, that this brings Core Strategy policy H-2 into effect, and that the minimum accessibility score for housing sites is therefore set at “zero”. It says the NPPF puts additional emphasis on boosting housing supply. And when it deals with the shortfall in private amenity space, it says in terms that the shortfall would not significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits of additional housing at a time of under-supply.
On traffic the report uses a different test. It cites the NPPF rule that development should be refused on highways grounds only if the impact on safety would be unacceptable or the residual cumulative impact on the road network severe, finds that this is not met, and relies on the highway engineer’s lack of objection. So the written record shows housing need being weighed against amenity space in so many words. It does not show it being weighed against traffic. Whether councillors were told something stronger in the room is what I allege and cannot now prove.
Would those words have been wrong?
The exact words matter, and I do not want the book to overclaim. Planning is a balance, and the weight to give each factor is for members. With a housing supply of 3.78 years, the national policy framework tells decision-makers to give housing delivery heavy weight, and a planning officer could lawfully say so. What the law does not allow is advice that treats traffic as beside the point, or that sets the wrong test. On highways, the test the report itself cites is whether the impact on safety would be unacceptable or the cumulative impact on the road network severe.
So the question for the recording is whether members were told that housing need was a weightier consideration to be balanced against traffic, which is lawful, or that their traffic concerns could not count, which would be a misdirection. My account does not settle that. I am not a lawyer, and a solicitor should advise before I put it higher.
The Council’s documented answer
After I had complained, the Leader wrote on 17 January 2025 that my complaint response would be reviewed. On 25 February 2025 Katie Moores, the Complaints Manager, replied that she had reviewed the original complaint, the Area Committee webcast and the earlier responses, and was satisfied that “a factually correct and proportionate response was provided”.
I answered the same evening, invoking a duty of candour on public bodies, and put three questions:
- Did the planning officer give councillors misleading or inaccurate information on the balance between housing need and traffic concerns?
- Was the planning committee made fully aware that local councillors’ withdrawal of objections was based on incorrect advice?
- Does the Council acknowledge any failure to ensure transparency and accuracy?
Ms Moores’s final written answer, on 18 March 2025, was: (1) No. (2) Not applicable. (3) No.
The missing webcast
I have looked for the webcast of the 15 August 2024 meeting and cannot find it. I understand the Council deletes webcasts after a year. Ms Bates’s letter of 28 August 2024, written within two weeks of the meeting, quotes timestamps from it, so the Council listened to the recording then. The Complaints Manager reviewed the Area Committee webcast in February 2025. So the Council has, or had, the means to say what was said.
Here is how I would try to recover the evidence. None of it is guaranteed.
- Ask the Council, under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000, whether any copy of either webcast still exists anywhere, including with its webcasting supplier or on a complaint file, and for its retention policy and the date each recording was deleted.
- Ask for the complaint file, including any notes or transcript made when the Area Committee webcast was reviewed, and the working papers behind Ms Bates’s letter of 28 August 2024. That letter quotes timestamps, so it must have been written from the recording.
- Ask for the minutes of the Area Committee (29 July 2024) and of the Planning and Highways Regulation Committee (15 August 2024), and any officer presentation or briefing notes.
- Ask whether the retention policy has an exception where a complaint or Ombudsman referral is live. If recordings were deleted while my complaint was open, I would like to know why.
- Ask anyone who watched live, including the member of the public who spoke against the scheme at the Area Committee, whether they took notes or screenshots or kept a copy. Check my own devices, emails and notes.
- Ask ward councillors, in writing, what they were told. Their answers are themselves a record.
When the Council does not answer
My experience is that Stockport Council ignores my requests for information. If the Council does not answer the requests listed above, that silence is itself a fact I can report, with dates. Chapter 13 explains the statutory time limits and what to do when they pass.
Where that leaves the claim
Until I can find the recording or another witness, the honest status is this: I believe it, I have said it, the Council denies it, and the written record supports the weighing of housing need but does not record the statement I allege. If I cannot recover the evidence, the book should present the allegation as my account of what was said, say plainly that the recording is no longer available, and rest the argument on the documents I can show.
What I can say without qualification is that the Council’s replies did not answer the question I thought I was asking. They said what it had decided, not what members had been told.
10. The Paper Trail
Between August 2024 and March 2025 this complaint generated a trail of correspondence. For the record, here it is.
| Date | What happened |
| 15 Aug 2024 | PHRC meeting approves the scheme on balance. |
| 16 Aug 2024, 12:20 | My “preliminary complaint prior to referring the matter to the Local Government Ombudsman”, to the Leader, Michael Cullen, Vicki Bates, Cllr Angie Clark and Cllr Lisa Smart: “Complaint about planning committee failing to properly consider traffic issues”. Four further emails follow on 16–17 August. |
| 28 Aug 2024, 09:50 | Vicki Bates, Assistant Director – Legal & Democratic Governance and Monitoring Officer, replies, copying Planning.DC. She is satisfied traffic and bin storage were considered sufficiently. |
| 3 Sep 2024, 13:44 | Cllr Sue Glithero emails me (copying Ms Bates, Michael Cullen and Cllr Mark Jones) to confirm there was “no suggestion” that local people could rent out their drives, and agrees driveway capacity was an observation, not a planning matter. |
| 17 Jan 2025 | The Leader writes that the complaint response will be reviewed. |
| 25 Feb 2025, 17:26 | Katie Moores, Complaints Manager: satisfied a “factually correct and proportionate response” was given. |
| 25 Feb 2025, 18:51 | My reply, invoking a duty of candour, with three questions. |
| 18 Mar 2025, 17:06 | Ms Moores: (1) No; (2) Not applicable; (3) No. |
One note on Cllr Glithero’s email. It confirms that no suggestion was made at the committee that local people could rent out their drives, and that driveway capacity was only an observation. I accept that. It does mean that the Council has told us what the parking solution is not, which brings us no closer to what it is.
11. The Decision Notice
The Decision Notice for DC/083741 was issued on 20 October 2025 and signed by Emma Curle, Assistant Director, Place Making and Planning. It followed a Section 106 agreement dated 13 October 2025. It grants full permission, subject to fifteen conditions. The development must begin within three years of the date of the notice, so by October 2028.
What the conditions cover
| No. | Subject |
| 1 | Approved drawings (and a long list of policies the drawings are said to comply with) |
| 2 | Cycle parking: covered, secure store for at least 11 cycles; details to be approved before work on it starts |
| 3 | Bin store: details to be submitted and approved; no occupation until provided |
| 4–9 | Heritage and conservation area: external materials and samples, stone and brick cleaning, windows and doors, rooflights, external plant and aerials, hard and soft landscaping |
| 10–12 | Bats (precautionary measures), nesting birds (no clearance 1 March–31 August without a check), and a biodiversity scheme with at least four bat and bird boxes |
| 13 | Surface water drainage scheme with SuDS, to be approved and implemented before occupation |
| 14 | Crime Impact Statement security measures (dated 27 February 2022) |
| 15 | Obscure glazing to side windows |
What the notice does not say
Read it from top to bottom and you will find no condition covering:
- parking of any kind, or a restriction on residents obtaining parking permits;
- disabled or accessible parking (the officers’ Update to Members dealt with it; see below);
- a construction management plan, delivery routing or working hours; or
- any travel plan or highway improvement. The Section 106 contains none either.
The bins, which exercised the committee so much, are dealt with by a condition that requires the details to be provided later (Condition 3). It leaves the dispute to be resolved after permission has been granted.
Disabled parking: what the officers said
The Update to Members deals with it briefly. The scheme is a conversion from a use that “had no parking, including no disabled provision”, and the highway officers add that for a new build it is likely they would have looked for disabled parking. So the Council did consider the question, and decided that a conversion did not need it.
I think that answer is open to challenge. A hall is visited. These are homes, and a disabled resident cannot be expected to find a space on Howard Close. Whether the Council considered its duty under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 is a separate matter, and the report does not mention it. I am not a lawyer. That is a question, not an allegation.
The Section 106 agreement
I now hold a copy of the Section 106 agreement. It is unsigned and undated, so it is a draft, and the Decision Notice says the signed version is dated 13 October 2025. The Council is one party. The other, called the Owner, is Bingley UK Developments Limited (company number 12851676), at the address of its solicitors in Leeds. Recital (D) confirms that the committee resolved on 15 August 2024 to grant permission subject to the agreement.
The obligations are brief. The Owner must give the Council ten working days’ written notice of the intended start, and a second notice within five working days of starting. It must pay an Open Space Commuted Sum of £43,384, index-linked to the Retail Prices Index, on or before commencement, and must not start until it has. It must also pay a £200 monitoring fee. That is all. There is no affordable housing contribution and nothing on highways, parking, a travel plan or construction traffic.
The sum works out at about £3,944 for each of the eleven flats. The Council promises to hold it in a separately identified part of its accounts, to spend it only for the stated purposes, and to refund anything not spent or committed within eight years of receipt. The stated purposes are enhancing public open space and providing and maintaining children’s play and formal recreation areas within the Borough. The money need not be spent near Hatherlow, and nothing is received until the developer starts.
Where is the clawback?
The officer report says the appointed surveyor agreed that affordable housing would make the scheme unviable. It then says, under “Other Matters”, that any permission should be subject to a Section 106 including a clawback clause, so that a contribution could be secured “should the development prove more profitable than currently envisaged”. The report’s formal recommendation, however, refers only to a Section 106 for open space. And the draft I hold has no clawback clause at all.
The signed version may differ. If it does not, the question is simple: the report said clawback, and the agreement does not contain it. Who decided to leave it out, and why?
When does the clock start?
The agreement defines “Commencement of Development” by listing operations that are disregarded for the purposes of the deed: demolition, site clearance, ground investigations, remedial work, diversion of services, site surveys, temporary access works, archaeological investigations and temporary fencing. The proposal includes demolition. As I read it, a developer could demolish and clear without triggering the notice or the £43,384 payment, and the planning permission could be treated as begun in the meantime. I am not a lawyer and may have this wrong, but the Council should be asked when the permission will be treated as begun, and when the money falls due.
Drafting slips
A few slips suggest haste. Clause 8 refers to “clause 100”, which does not exist. The contents page lists clauses out of page order. The Owner’s signature block reads “Signed by a Directo of”. None of this matters much alone, but it is a document that was supposed to bind a developer for years.
Two oddities in the Decision Notice
First, Condition 1 gives as its reason that the drawings are needed to ensure compliance with a long list of policies. The list includes T-2, Parking in Developments, and H-3, Affordable Housing. The officer report explains that H-3 allows viability to be considered, so the scheme should not be treated as a departure from policy, and T-2 sets maximum standards, which a scheme with none cannot exceed. So the list may be a catalogue rather than an error. But a reader may well wonder.
Second, Condition 15 is worded as if for an extension: “The extension shall not be occupied until the windows on the North Western and Southern Eastern facing side elevations…”. The scheme is a conversion. It is probably a recycled template, and it is trivial, but a condition that has to be enforced should say what it means.
12. Questions the Council Must Answer
These are the questions this investigation leaves open. None accuses anyone of anything. All could be answered by documents the Council holds.
- The survey brief. Who proposed the dates and times of the Lambeth survey, and what did the Council ask for in its comments on revision A? Did anyone ask for a weekday or weekend evening when the pub was trading, or a time when the church had an event?
- The “evening” description. The officer report told members the surveys were done in the evening and on Sunday, reflecting the pub’s visitors. The Transport Statement gives early morning, mid-afternoon and midnight to 5am. What were the actual clock times?
- The pub car park. Paragraph 3.5 says it cannot be counted; paragraph 3.14 counts it. Which did officers rely on?
- Overdale Road. About 70% of the “free” spaces are there. How far is it from the site entrance, and was that distance considered?
- Howard Close. The surveyor wrote “Narrow Road” and counted eleven spaces, with 82% stress at night. What assessment was made of the effect of eleven more vehicles, and of the objection about emergency vehicles?
- The highway works. Officers accepted that the planned crossing and no-waiting restrictions will remove on-street parking. How many spaces, and were any of them counted in the survey?
- Disabled parking. The Update to Members says none was needed for a conversion. Was any equality assessment made under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010? I am not a lawyer; this is a question, not an allegation.
- The conditions. Why no parking-management condition, construction management plan or restriction on permits?
- The clawback. The report said the Section 106 should include one. Where is it, and who decided to leave it out?
- The owner. Who is Bingley UK Developments Limited, how is it connected to OMD Properties Ltd and Mr Davy, and whose finances did the Council’s surveyor review?
- The unknown freeholder. The Section 106 records that the freeholder of part of the site is unknown and that the only search was a newspaper notice. Did the Council ask for more? What happens if the freeholder appears?
- Housing need. What did the planning officer tell members on 15 August 2024 about housing need and traffic, in reply to their concerns? Does any record of the meeting survive, such as the recording, notes or a transcript?
- The bins. Will the Condition 3 details be approved by officers alone, or come back to members, who spent so long on them?
13. What Can Still Be Done
I am not a lawyer, and what follows is a guide to the questions to put to one. The position, now that the permission has been issued, is difficult. I would rather say so than raise false hopes.
The routes, and their limits
- Judicial review. Challenges to planning permissions must be brought promptly, and for planning decisions the time limit is six weeks. With the Decision Notice dated 20 October 2025, I expect that this route has closed. Ask a solicitor.
- Revocation under section 97 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The Council may revoke or modify a permission where it considers it expedient to do so, but only with the Secretary of State’s confirmation, and it would probably have to pay compensation to the developer. It is unlikely, but it is the route I have asked the Council to consider.
- The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. The Ombudsman can investigate whether the Council acted with fault in how it reached its decision, including advice to members and its handling of complaints. It cannot simply substitute its own view on the planning merits. Complaints are normally expected within twelve months of the complainant becoming aware of the problem.
- The discharge of conditions. Conditions 2, 3, 4–9, 12 and 13 all require the developer to submit details to the Council. These appear on the planning register, and residents can write in. The bin store (Condition 3) and the drainage scheme (Condition 13) are the most important.
- The Commencement Notice. Informative 6 on the Decision Notice reminds the developer of the legal duty under section 93G of the 1990 Act (introduced by the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023) to tell the Council when work will start. Watch for it. The Section 106 separately requires notice, but it disregards demolition and site clearance when defining a start (Chapter 11). The permission lapses if the development has not begun within three years of the notice, in October 2028.
- If the Council does not answer. A request under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 or the Freedom of Information Act 2000 should be answered within 20 working days, and the Regulations allow up to 40 where a request is complex or large. Chase in writing, then ask for an internal review, then complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office, which deals with failures to respond. Making requests through a public site such as WhatDoTheyKnow puts the dates and the silence on the public record. They do not respond to FOIA/EIR questions.
Epilogue
Be always prepared.
The Council was told by residents, and by some of its own members, that the streets around the Sunday School fill up. It could have been prepared. It could have asked for a survey on a Friday evening, or on the day of a funeral. It could have insisted on a parking-management condition or one disabled bay. It could have asked a short question: what happens when the pub is open and the church has an event on?
It did not. It had a Monday morning at ten, a Sunday afternoon and a Tuesday night. It has since issued a Decision Notice that imposes no condition about cars.
Eleven households will, one day, come home to Howard Close in the evening and look for somewhere to park. I hope the streets can cope. The photographs in this book suggest that, on a busy evening, it will not be easy.
The sundial’s motto was meant for children. It would have done no harm to adults.
Sheila Oliver
Appendix A: Timeline
| Date | Event |
| 1706 / 1792 / 1814 | Chapel at Hatherlow; belfry (1792) and sundial (1814) later reused in the rebuilt hall |
| May 1817 | Sunday School begins |
| 1862 / 1911 | Extension; rebuilding |
| 17 Dec 2021 | Application DC/083741 received |
| 14 Sep 2022 | Application validated |
| Feb 2023 | Transport Statement rev A, amended to address Council comments |
| 16 Jul 2023 | Sunday parking beat survey (day and night beats) |
| 18 Jul 2023 | Tuesday parking beat survey, 00:00–05:00 |
| Aug 2023 | Transport Statement rev B, amended for parking survey results |
| 25 Apr 2024 | Expiry date shown on the officer report |
| 29 Jul 2024 | Werneth Area Committee considers the application |
| 12 Aug 2024 (Mon, 10am) | PHRC site visit |
| 15 Aug 2024 (Thu) | PHRC meeting approves the scheme |
| 16 Aug 2024 | Author’s complaint to the Council |
| 28 Aug 2024 | Vicki Bates replies |
| 3 Sep 2024 | Cllr Glithero emails |
| 17 Jan 2025 | Leader writes that the complaint response will be reviewed |
| 25 Feb – 18 Mar 2025 | Complaints Manager exchange; three-part denial |
| Aug 2025 | No work on site |
| 4 Oct 2025 | Gazette piece on officer accountability |
| 13 Oct 2025 | Section 106 agreement signed |
| 20 Oct 2025 | Decision Notice issued |
| 30 Sep 2026, 5.08pm | Photograph, Figure 8 |
| Oct 2028 | Permission lapses if development has not begun |
