Monthly Archives: Jan 2025

Call for Action 2 – Carrington Relief Road!

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There have been numerous concerns raised about the route of the Carrington ‘Relief’ Road across Carrington Moss, as it will cause significant harms to both human and wildlife populations and several of our members have suggested that there is a significant lack of awareness shown by those making the decisions about this proposal. 

With this in mind, we hope you will all join us on a walk along the public rights of way near to the Carrington Moss part of the route for the new road.  We plan to meet on Dainewell Park on Saturday 8th February at 2pm. 

We’d like you to invite your Councillors and your MP to join us on the walk, so we can share our concerns.  If you are not sure who your Councillors or your MP are, click on this link to find out.  You just need to put in your post code and, hey presto, the information is there.  When the details come up, you will see a link at the right-hand side which says “Write to all your Councillors”.  You can drop them a note and invite them to come along.  If you click on your MP’s name, you can also send an email to him inviting him to come along and hear your concerns about the road.  The more invitations the politicians receive, the more likely they are to join us on the walk.

As we mentioned in our previous blog (Call for Action 1 Respond to the Consultation), the Friends of Carrington Moss welcome the long-awaited opening of the A1 route through the employment area of Carrington, but all HGVs should be required to use that route, rather than travelling along the A6144 through Carrington Village.  The CRR consultation confirms that “HGVs will not be banned on the A6144” but this should be challenged in consultation responses. 

It is disgraceful that Trafford Council have enabled the current situation being experienced by Trafford residents living in Carrington, including the air, noise, light and vibration pollution they are suffering day and night.  During the past more than 10 years of planning for unviable and unsustainable growth here, Trafford Council has not identified and/or committed funding for sustainable passenger and freight transport solutions for the area.  This is particularly shocking given the anticipated number of HGVs using local roads each day, including those that will carry hazardous materials.  There are various alternative options Trafford could have considered, including using the former railway lines, the Manchester Ship Canal and the potential to deploy pipelines (there are several of these in the area already)!

We do, though, have major concerns about the part of the route which runs across Carrington Moss.  Not just because of the impact it will cause to Sale West residents and the lack of benefits to surrounding communities, but also because of the harm it will cause to the 335-hectare peat moss (described by Natural England as irreplaceable and restorable), the productive Grade 2 agricultural land, the extensive woodland and the wetland habitats.  All of which are essential to a sustainable future for our children and grandchildren.  The road, and the wider plans for New Carrington, will also significantly impact 15 sites of biological importance and a site of special scientific significance.

Click here to join our online public meeting on 28th January at 6pm to discuss these issues further.  All are welcome.

Finally, despite highlighting previous inaccurate, incomplete or misleading information in CRR materials, the consultation resources (letters and website) have yet more examples.  We will be requesting a further Call for Action from local communities.  Look out for our next blog for more information on this.

Call for Action 1 – Carrington Relief Road!

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Respond to the Consultation

As the first Carrington Relief Road (CRR) consultation goes live today (20th January 2025), we are issuing our first Call for Action to local communities.  Please take the time to respond and encourage friends and family to participate too.

The consultation period includes some face-to-face sessions, and we hope you will be able to attend one of these.  Just a reminder that the current CRR team are NOT responsible for the decisions made in the past and that they have been directed to give a very limited scope to the consultation, which is only based on the design of the road! 

The inadequacies of this consultation have been determined by Trafford Council, and they have repeatedly rejected our requests for communities to be able to influence the wider aspects of transport solutions for the area – our next Call for Action will address this failure (see below).

This consultation ends on 28th February.  Your inputs are extremely important, so do click on this link to read Trafford’s materials and submit your own response.  We will be discussing this consultation at our next online public meeting on 28th January (6pm), the link to the meeting is here and all are very welcome to join us.

At the meeting, we will highlight some of the key points to consider, which include the following:

  • there are two parts to the Carrington Relief Road (CRR):
    • we are totally supportive of the upgrading of the A1 route in Carrington (this runs through the employment zone from Isherwood Road to the A6144 near Saica Paper), all HGVs should be encouraged to use this road, rather than the A6144 through Carrington Village – this could have come forward years ago without any objections!

    • we are totally against the development of the road across Carrington Moss and have been proposing our alternative to Trafford for the last 4 years, without success – they are only interested in promoting the CRR, despite its escalating costs – it is a commitment to support development – not a solution aimed at benefiting existing communities
  • how the current design ‘benefits’ communities:
    • Carrington residents will only benefit from this new road if through-traffic and HGVs are unable to use the A6144 through the village, with appropriate traffic calming mechanisms put in place (otherwise, residents here will just be surrounded by constant traffic and the associated pollutant impacts)

    • Partington and Warburton residents will, sadly, not benefit from the scheme – Trafford has acknowledged that the road will induce additional traffic, much of which is likely to continue through Partington and Warburton, seeking an alternative route to the motorways, furthermore, given the low levels of car ownership in Partington, a new road will not reduce the isolation of this community (unlike a tram/train connection)

    • Sale West residents will be the most negatively affected by the scheme, they will suffer from huge increases to air, noise, light, vibration and water pollution, a significant, intensified and more frequent risk of local flooding, and the loss of the current safe, healthy and pleasant traffic-free recreational routes – we recognise that the recorded and unrecorded public rights of way will still be there, but, with the road solution, residents will be walking, cycling and horse riding next to the over 40,000 motor vehicles expected to use the road each day (including over 3,000 HGVs) – the number of vehicles will significantly increase from the current traffic numbers due to the proposed developments in the area and the induced traffic using the road as a ‘rat-run’!

    • Urmston residents will not benefit from the scheme either, but they are also likely to see an increase in traffic on their local roads and the risk of local flooding will increase due to the loss of water capture and storage on Carrington Moss (we do not believe the proposed attenuation ponds will be sufficient to replace the capacity lost when the road is built)
  • how the design ‘mitigates and compensates for the impact on the natural environment’:
    • the part of the road that cuts across Carrington Moss will severely impact red listed birds (including, for example, the skylark, which is prevalent along the route of the road) and protected/endangered species – we are very saddened by the thought of yet more roadkill!

    • the road will fracture the corridors used by wildlife and birds to access food and water sources – this will result in further depletion of their species

    • the road will also damage the peat moss (a restorable 335-hectare irreplaceable habitat according to Natural England) and the sites of biological importance/site of special scientific interest, even where these are not directly impacted – this is because of the changes to hydrology that will be required to keep the road water-free

    • it is likely that Trafford will consider that the attenuation ponds will replace the immense water capture and storage functionality of the moss – we think they underestimate the level of water captured here and this could lead to huge risks for local communities

    • Trafford is also likely to assume that these pond areas will create biodiversity gains, but what must be considered is that the losses will be experienced immediately, whereas any gains could take years to deliver, and, in that time, species will be lost to the area forever

    • the road will also impact the potential opportunities to support the Local Nature Recovery Strategy

    • the loss of productive Grade 2 agricultural land will impact future food security as this cannot be replaced elsewhere in Trafford
  • how the design constrains the development of the New Carrington Masterplan which is currently under development and covers the whole allocation area:
    • the CRR will significantly restrict and constrain what is possible in terms of recreational, ecological and natural capital benefits for the Sale West area, considerably increasing the inequities of access to green space for residents

    • the Natural Infrastructure Strategy underpinning the Masterplan has not yet even been discussed – this should determine the approach to mitigation and compensation for environmental and ecological harms to be caused across the allocation area (including the cumulative harms) – such issues should not be addressed as piecemeal solutions for individual developments, including the CRR.

Whilst we are keen for residents to respond as constructively as possible to this consultation, we also need to recognise that Trafford has not given communities the opportunity to influence either:

  • the choice of transport options for this area (why weren’t we asked if we wanted trams or trains, given the size and scale of the developments they are proposing, the number of years this has been under consideration, and the sheer common sense that we should make full use of the former railway lines running through the allocation area and the proximity of the Manchester Ship Canal?), or
  • the route options for the road.

You might want to mention this in the final section of the response questionnaire (headed “Further Comments / Queries), but with these things in mind, there will be a future Call for Action from local communities to address the total lack of previous consultation about the CRR. 

Look out for our next blog for more community action on the Carrington Relief Road Consultation.

What exactly is the Vision for New Carrington?

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Houses on stilts?  An estate by the lake? HGVs replaced by boats (well we like that idea)!

The recent heavy rainfall event significantly impacted many in our communities (and beyond), not only causing disruption to travel and a lot of inconvenience (wonder who’ll be jailed for that*) but also, very sadly, causing the deaths of wildlife and domestic animals.  The Manchester Evening News (2nd January) reported that 1,000 people were evacuated from their homes and several major roads were under water and closed for a long period. 

Whilst Trafford was “working closely with the Environment Agency, fire and rescue services, and the police to provide support to those in urgent need”, there was a huge amount of community support too.  Thanks to everyone who did their bit, particular thanks to Carrington Riding Centre for their support to those affected (humans and animals).

Despite the Environment Agency issuing six flood warning and four flood alerts, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, astoundingly stated that the severity of the flooding took authorities by surprise because no specific warnings were given!  He has called for “accountability”.  We wonder what he actually means by that.

Will he and his colleagues, the leaders of 9 districts in Greater Manchester, be held accountable, for example, for their decision to allocate land that is essential for climate mitigation in his Places for Everyone Spatial Plan.  One of those allocations is New Carrington, in which Trafford Council proposes to approve the development of 5,000 houses, 350,000m2 warehousing and 4 major new roads! 

These developments will mean that huge swathes of land that is currently capturing and storing thousands of litres of water will be concreted over, against the wishes of local communities, causing significant environmental and ecological harm and causing enormous risks to future generations (and not just in relation to flooding).

There is a lack of understanding at Trafford Council about just how much water is hosted by Carrington Moss.  This area has saved local communities from more severe flooding for decades.  You can see some of our videos showing the extent of flooding in previous years on the Carrington Lake page of our website.

The Met Office (and many others) have reported that rainfall is now heavier and more frequent than in the past.  Their scientists found that “rainfall associated with storms is becoming both more intense and more likely”.  Whereas we could, at one time, expect such events to be once in 50 years or so, those extreme weather conditions are now expected to occur at least once every five years. 

This means that wetland habitats, like Carrington Moss, are hugely valuable for the ecosystem services they provide. 

What is really worrying many in existing communities though, is that, if this very wet land is developed, future heavy rainfall events will not have the benefit of Carrington Moss to protect local areas.  Once a flood event has happened to their homes, residents will find it difficult to get insurance and there will be huge costs to the public sector (which is funded by us). 

Much of the land that is proposed for development is under high levels of water.  The Council and developers will tell residents that they have a sustainable drainage strategy but let’s be clear, draining all this water into the River Mersey (or Sinderland Brook) will cause local and downstream flooding.  This is contrary to national guidance and our concerns about this issue have been repeatedly ignored by Trafford, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and the PfE Planning Inspectors. 

Will they all be held accountable for future flood events that occur here and in surrounding communities?

Many of you will have seen the Manchester Evening News article that reported the closure (once again) of the A555 Airport Relief Road, which had cars submerged to their rooftops!  Transport solutions such as this do not benefit anyone, and as Trafford themselves admit, the new road here (Carrington Relief Road) is expected to induce additional traffic into the area (definitely not what we need). 

We are currently expecting the consultation for the Carrington Relief Road to be issued later this month.  Please keep this flooding in mind when you respond.  We believe our alternative option is a more sustainable solution that will benefit both current and future residents. 

For more information about our ongoing campaign, please sign up to our monthly newsletter here and join us at our monthly online public meetings.

Note: Image credits Rob Duncan, Mary Lennon and Tony Shearwood

*for anyone who does not understand this reference, protestors who cause inconvenience to others by, for example, sitting in the road to raise an issue, can be jailed – yet those who knowingly make decisions that result in far more serious implications, such as planning for or approving development in areas that should be capturing flood water, putting current and future communities at real risk of harm, currently escape any accountability or punishment!