Strategic Overview - Open Land and River Valleys
Unitary Development Plan
Chapter 2 : Strategic Overview
Open Land and River Valleys
Key
| 2.46 | Roughly half of Tameside is open land and the area contains a variety of landscapes which range from fairly flat, low lying farmland in the west to high, barren moors in the east, with a change in elevation from around 300 to 1600 feet. The most important features are the incised river valleys of the Medlock, Tame and Etherow which run through or along the borders of the Borough from north east to south west, and the steep Pennine foothills such as Werneth Low and Hartshead Pike. The upland areas in the eastern half of Tameside provide a particularly interesting and attractive landscape. There are numerous areas of woodland in Tameside but these are mostly quite small in extent and often found in the narrow, steep sided cloughs which permeate the landscape. |
| 2.47 | Open land is a valuable resource which is extremely important to the quality of life of residents within a predominantly urban area. It can fulfil a number of functions, such as helping to define separate towns and villages, offering contrast and relief to otherwise continuous built up areas, and providing land for farming, recreation and wildlife. However, in some instances it must also be accepted as a potential supply of land for development required to meet other equally important needs. Various factors are at work which can affect the use and appearance of the countryside and the urban fringe, including changes in agricultural practices which are largely outside of the planning system, and the growing pressure for various forms of open air recreation. |
| 2.48 | The open land in the Borough is mostly average or low grade in agricultural potential and used for grazing or hay crops, with parts of the moorland kept for the annual grouse shooting. Ashton Moss is untypical of the area, being Grade 2 agricultural quality and used for horticulture, although production there faces various problems and not all of the plots are actually in cultivation. Agricultural activity in fact seems to be of marginal viability and in decline in many parts of the Borough, due to factors such as changing E.E.C. regulations and subsidies, and fragmentation of ownership, with farming enterprises often being partly dependent on jobs outside of agriculture. |
| 2.49 | Since the early 1970's the environment in the river valleys, especially that of the Tame and Medlock, has been greatly improved through removal of derelict land and unsightly uses and through landscaping, tree planting and footpath work, reversing many earlier years of neglect. At the same time, their predominantly open character has been maintained and enhanced wherever possible. The protection of the river valleys from inappropriate development and the improvement of their landscape and recreational use has been one of the major achievements of planning in the Greater Manchester area over the last 20 years, now embodied in Local Plans for the Tame, Medlock and Etherow which have been adopted covering parts of Tameside. |
| 2.50 | The river valleys and other features of topography have in a number of places prevented certain of Tameside's constituent towns from coalescing and still serve to separate the Borough from its neighbours to the north and south. In addition, the built up area is broken in a number of places by long wedges of open space, supplemented in recent years by reclaimed former mineral and waste sites, which often link up to the wider area of countryside and can act as corridors for the migration of wildlife. The effect of this and of the way certain towns have expanded has been to create an extremely long urban fringe. Some of the land along this fringe is poorly maintained and under used, and in need of environmental improvement. |
| 2.51 | Government policy has been to offer firm and continued protection of the Green Belts drawn around large built up areas. They also recognise that Green Belts have a positive role in providing access to the countryside for the urban population and that outdoor leisure pursuits are likely to occupy an increasing proportion of their area if land needed for food production decreases. Open land within built up areas has had less consistent protection but there are recent indications of growing Government awareness of the dangers of "town cramming" and of the reduction in recreational opportunities if urban open spaces continue to be lost. |
| 2.52 | The last ten years have seen strong protection of the Greater Manchester Green Belt, which covers much of the open land surrounding the urban areas of Tameside and in many places is drawn tightly up to the existing built development. However, whilst many despoiled sites have been improved in recent years, the second half of the 1980's has seen peripheral open land outside the Green Belt and surplus sports grounds and other open sites within the built-up area increasingly sought after for house building. This has led to growing concern about retention of remaining urban green space. |
Page last updated: 2 November 2007