Macclesfield Canal Conservation Area

Appraisal and Management Proposals

A project has been running since 2005 which has the objective of providing grants to property owners along the Macclesfield Canal within Macclesfield and Congleton boroughs in order to save decaying property and improve the quality of the adjacent environment (grant applications are now closed) and known as the Macclesfield Canal English Heritage Partnership Project. None of the money could be spent on maintenance of the canal infrastructure. This project is a Partnership project originally jointly managed by Macclesfield Borough Council and Congleton Borough Council, now with Cheshire East Council, with a steering group composed of all parties including British Waterways and the Macclesfield Canal Society and chaired by your webmaster, Tim Boddington.

One part of this project was to develop Appraisal and Management Proposals and a full study was carried out along the whole length of canal by consultants. This report has also informed the development of the Macclesfield Canal Management Partnership proposals which are likely to be implemented by British Waterways and the new Cheshire East Council in due course.

One of the recommendations in the report, for the benefit of the management proposals, was a review of the Macclesfield Canal Conservation Areas (MCCA), one in each of Macclesfield and Congleton boroughs, covering the entire length of waterway. This review proposed a number of alterations to the conservation area boundaries at many places along the canal including the biggest change, which is in Bollington.

Within Bollington there is a large area of non-canal related land included in the MCCA which would not be subject to the management plan. The proposal is to remove this land from the MCCA and include all of it in a new conservation area, the Bollington Civic Conservation Area.

The area of land in question is most of that west of the canal up to and including the Middlewood Way from Lodge Brow in the north to Grimshaw Lane in the south. This includes Lodge Brow, the Recreation Ground, Adlington Road, Round Gardens, part of Palmerston Street, part of Wellington Road, School Brow (Hurst Lane), Greenbank Drive, much of the unadopted section of Hawthorn Road, and the triangle of undeveloped land behind Bailey's Business Park off Grimshaw Lane.

Any property that is already in a CA will remain in a CA. No new properties will be added to any CA.

We are expecting the formalities of this change to be carried out in the first quarter of 2009.