Providing the connection between need and opportunities in the east of the conurbation, the Eastern Growth Cluster will create a significant new employment engine in Tameside. The Ashton Mayoral Development Zone will achieve this by aligning public and private sector investment to deliver the key development opportunities of Ashton Moss and Ashton Town Centre.
Development in the Cluster will build upon Tameside’s existing strengths in advanced materials and manufacturing of coatings, plastics and textiles. The Eastern Growth Cluster can also take advantage of the borough’s city region-leading digital connectivity, which puts advanced broadband infrastructure within 200m of 50% of the borough’s industrial premises and over 50% of its housing. The existing road, tram, and rail transport assets in the area offer excellent transport links which are being expanded through the Bee Network and the proposed Rochdale-Oldham-Ashton Quality Bus Transit scheme.
To ensure local centres are adapting, developing, and reflective of their communities, the investment planned for the town centres of Ashton-under-Lyne, Hyde, and Stalybridge will transform the retail and culture offers in these centres. Residents will enjoy the benefits of modern and well utilised town centres, which are physically and digitally connected to the sustainable employment opportunities being created and the improved sustainable transport connectivity between local centres and communities.
The development of over 2,000 new high-quality, sustainably designed homes at Godley Green Garden Village, offers an opportunity to deliver a new sustainable garden settlement of beauty and great design that sensitively evolves around existing communities and landscape.
Through close collaboration and joint development with residents and the borough’s Further Education institutions and improved links to the city region’s Universities, skills provision and investment will be developed and expanded to support residents of some of our more deprived communities, such as Ashton-under-Lyne, Droylsden, and Hyde to access the employment opportunities being created.
The completion of Tameside College’s Construction Skills Centre, on the same campus as their manufacturing focused Advanced Skills Centre, and ongoing work to establish additional Further and Higher Education provision in the Ashton Mayoral Development Zone, demonstrates the first clear steps of this strategy being put into action.
