By George Lythgoe, Local Democracy Reporting Service
A FORMER power station will be transformed, with 163 homes being placed on part of it, after plans received the final sign-off.
Hartshead and Millbrook Sidings in Stalybridge have been vacant for more than 35 years.
Now a £12.5 million scheme by Casey Group – approved by Tameside Council’s Speaker’s Panel (Planning) committee in 2024 – has passed the final paperwork stage.
Spilt into four areas, zone one is focused on ponds and surroundings at the Printworks, which would be protected as an ‘ecology area’.
Zone two, where a community hub was originally planned, has now been redesigned to become an ‘ecology enhancement area’ on the former power station site to the north of Spring Bank Lane.
Zone three is woodland along the route of a former railway line, while zone four is the former railway sidings off Crowswood Drive, where the 162 homes are planned.
The site itself sits within the green belt and currently has remnants of the former industrial uses including exposed culverts and drains, disused buildings and structures, piles of rubble and concrete slabs and isolated contamination.
The new housing estate would be split between 31 two-bed houses, 75 three-bed and 55 four or more-bedroomed homes.
These would include a range of affordable and open market properties accessed off Crowswood Drive, according to planning documents.
When the applicants originally tabled the plans in 2021, they wanted to create a new park across 62 acres of land in Millbrook, named the ‘Tame Valley Park’ which would serve the 35,000 residents of Stalybridge and Mossley.
Hundreds of objection letters led to changes in the application and because of concerns over loss of green space, the plan for a community hub was scrapped and replaced with an ecological area, with a focus on nature conservation and biodiversity net gain.
Where the community hub, visitor car park and play area were once destined to go will now see new water bodies, a woodland and a flower meadow.
The proposed play area that was supposed to be incorporated into the community hub has been moved and would now connect to the existing and planned new homes.
Original plans, such as the retention and improvement of more than 16 hectares of woodland and vegetation, have been retained by the developers in order to provide ‘habitat creation and key green and blue infrastructure’.
Creation of new cycle and pedestrian routes – where the dismantled railway track used to be – would form part of the Bee Network cycle route.