Among The Retailers...

For this month’s walk, we head towards Handforth Dean, a name more synonymous with retail than rambling, writes HOWARD BRADBURY

- Howard Bradbury

WHAT proportion of England is built upon? Yes, I know, we’ve concreted over so much of our green and pleasant land that it’s bound to be a sizeable percentage.

Actually, no. If you crowded together every single house, shop, factory and other building in England, they would cover only 2 per cent of the country’s total land area.

I mention this because our walk this month takes us to a place which has already seen substantial development, both housing and retail, and has more to come. And yet even in places which people might imagine have been tainted by urban sprawl, it is possible to find lovely walks, green fields, woodland, river banks, birdlife.

Our walk, suggested by the wilmslowwalks.com website, takes us on a figure of eight route from the Deanwater Hotel at Woodford, through farm land towards Handforth Dean. It takes us into the ‘elbow’ created by the A34 and A555. You’ll glimpse tower blocks and some of the modern retail and leisure development which draws so much traffic on those busy roads. And the future holds more such development. This year will see public consultation on the proposed North Cheshire Garden Village - 1,650 homes, a school and community facilities, to be built between the A555 and A34 east of Handforth.