Doors will open at 10am and the event will take place from 10.30am to 12.30pm on Tuesday 20th March at the Friends' Meeting House in Manchester.

The meeting is free but we do ask that you register for tickets via Eventbrite.

The meeting will follow on from an earlier CPRE meeting focused on the consultation on the draft GMSF document in January 2017. As a result of consultation responses (circa 23,250 people objected to Green Belt loss), Andy Burnham, elected Mayor of Greater Manchester decided that the scale of development included in the GMSF needed to be reviewed, and more focus of development of brownfield sites in the existing urban areas was a priority.

CPRE advocates plan led development to promote sustainable development in the future. We supported the overall aims and objectives of the draft GMSF, but evidenced flawed calculations (including a critical appraisal by an independent expert demographer), leading to much more development being proposed than is in fact needed and an over focus on land in the countryside. This is particularly true in protected Green Belt areas. We called for continued protection of Green Belt land and instead more investment in brownfield sites.

The meeting will be open to members of CPRE, local community and environmental groups as well as members of the public.

Officers from the spatial planning team at Greater Manchester Combined Authority will attend to update on refreshed parts of the evidence base, such as the new Brownfield Registers produced by the ten constituent local planning authorities.

GMCA have said it hopes to publish the next draft in June 2018 and a 12-week consultation with the public will follow. CPRE hopes the meeting will better prepare the public to engage with the planning consultation and it hopes the meeting will question:

• Is the GMSF being refocused as a result of the public outcry, and if yes, how much Green Belt land is likely to be saved as a result?
• What reduction in scale of development been made to reflect the flawed housing calculations and unrealistic uplifts in job creation?
• How much more brownfield land is identified for the delivery of needed development?
• Has the development density been increased in central locations?
• What proportion of development is supported by new public transport infrastructure?
• What improvements in environmental quality will be secured?
• What action has been taken to improve the sustainability of the plan?
• Are there still areas of concern for CPRE and local residents to campaign on?

 The agenda for the day is as follows:

10.00 Arrival/Register, Tea and Coffee
10.30 CPRE update (what we have done and are doing + our role & perspective on GMSF).
10.45 GMCA update and Q&A
11.30 Future community engagement in planning for Greater Manchester
11.45 Launch of the CPRE Brownfield Register Toolkit
12.00 How can CPRE help deliver community priorities?
12.25 Round up and next steps
12.30 Close event