Read on Twitter
So, tonight is Stockport council votes on the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework Take 2...SPOILER: It's not going to get through, barring a not so minor miracle #GMSF #Stockport
Since councillors voted to adjourn the decision last month, a compromise offer from Labour to ditch the 500-home High Lane site and knock 70 homes off developments at Heald Green and Woodford Aerodrome have been turned down flat by the Tories.
Getting the Tories on board was Labour's best chance of securing enough votes to get the plan through.
Changing Lib Dem minds was an even bigger task - and an apparently cordial meeting between LD leader Mark Hunter, councill leader Elise Wilson and Andy Burnham came to zilch.
Changing Lib Dem minds was an even bigger task - and an apparently cordial meeting between LD leader Mark Hunter, councill leader Elise Wilson and Andy Burnham came to zilch.
Unless there have been some super secret talks over the last week or so, it would seem Stockport is about to reject the GMSF by 37 opposition votes to 26 Labour votes.
It really does seem to be all over bar the shouting - which would mean the end of the GMSF as the region-spanning masterplan it was originally conceived as.
It could be resurrected as a 'plan of the nine' - the rather Tolkein-ish moniker used by Salford Mayor Paul Dennett to describe a resurrected GMSF, minus Stockport.
But recent noises from other council leaders suggest a revived GMSF shorn of one of its 10 legs is now far from a certainty.
Whether this will just be a flesh wound or a killer blow remains to be seen...
Whether this will just be a flesh wound or a killer blow remains to be seen...
But I'm sure we have got plenty of arguing from both sides still to go, before we get to the (almost inevitable) result.
So, here we go...
So, here we go...
Lib Dems, Tories and HG Ratepayers have all indicated they will be voting against the GMSF tonight - but 17 councillors still want to have their say.
It's going to be (another) long night.
It's going to be (another) long night.
Three hours in and we're having a five minute break. In brief: Nobody has changed their mind, but everyone wants to explain why at length.
There's been a fair bit of political bickering - mainly Labour and Tories on the Lib Dems and vice versa. But there have also been a few hostile exchanges between the Tories and Labour.
I might be losing the plot but I think @tddowse compared the GMSF to a Big Brother contestant that could be selling fake tan in a few years. But that was surely a brief caffeine-induced fever dream...
We could be having another vote...not on the GMSF but whether to go past the guillotine (at 9.27pm, I think).
Being a virtual meeting with all the attendant technical problems, that could take some time in itself.
Being a virtual meeting with all the attendant technical problems, that could take some time in itself.
Anyway, Coun Roy Driver (Labour) is having his say now, I think Kate Butler (also Lab) is up next...
