Bloor beats Cheshire East in 325-home Sandbach appeal
The Planning Inspectorate has found in favour of the housebuilder and overturned the council’s decision to reject plans for the development of 47 acres off The Hill.
Bloor Homes has come out on the right side of an inquiry that was held in April following Cheshire East Council’s decision to reject Bloor Homes’ 325-home Sandbach plan last year.
After a four-hour debate, the council’s planning committee went against the recommendation of its officer team to reject the proposals. Members claimed Bloor had failed to provide evidence that the scheme’s impact on the grade two-listed Hill House, Oakley House, and the Leonard Cheshire Home, located nearby, had been mitigated.
They decided that the “adverse impacts of the proposal on the setting of the designated heritage assets would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the public benefits of providing housing”.
The planning inspector in charge of the inquiry disagreed, saying: “the extent and scale of the public benefits, especially the boost to housing supply and the provision of [affordable housing] would be overriding and of sufficient weight to outweigh the less than substantial harm in each of the heritage balances”.
The inspector did concede that there would be “moderate harm caused to the character and appearance of the area” and limited harm from the loss of good quality agricultural land.
However, crucial to the outcome of the appeal was Cheshire East’s current housing land supply position. The council can only demonstrate 3.3 years against a target of five, which put the authority on the back foot during the inquiry as this factor tips the balance in favour of approval.
Read the full decision notice by searching for reference number 3377118 on the Planning Inspectorate’s website.
Congratulations to Councillor Gardiner (again) at leading to another loss at appeal for Cheshire East Council.
By Anonymous
What a shock – Inspector backs developers in destroying farm land. Next!
By Anonymous
How far off are CEC now from special measures? Surely not too far now with the rate of allowed appeals?
By T.D.Smith
Cheshire East CounciIIors YET AGAIN ignoring rhe advice of ProfessionaI pIanning Officers – they NEVER Iearn. Time it was iIIegaI to ignore pIanning Officers advice without reason in statute proving their advice to be incorrect.
By David SIeath
Gutted, Cheshire east is just mega estate after mega estate, no room for wildlife, no improvement to water supply which is weak at best, roads gridlocked as all estates are 2/3 car households, no local shops, drs, dentists. Planning inspectorate should do a birds eye of the county and see what’s going up and what’s being applied for, 5 year plan seems to be that every resident of the UK needs to live in Cheshire.
By CM
Risk of lose the farm and countryside which is completely unacceptable because of green and health air good for humans 👍🏻
By G J Kitchener
No good, no more homes
By Anonymous
Where are the Doctors Dentist School s . Sandbach is gridlocked now. Absolute joke.
By Anonymous
Who is the person for a start that is selling good agricultural land.
As previous people say is there a doctors or a health care clinic, is there any sign of schools to be built,
What about the impact on the road,
What about the impact on wildlife,
If you do decide to build a school doctors and a health centre how will it be managed we are short of the staff ⚕️ to fill the vacancies.
What about treatment plants what about overloaded Victorian sewage system that is full to capacity.
Builders will offer you the world to get their way,
I’m surprised they haven’t done the old sob story about we will put you a play park there also (the big softener).
Very disappointed with Cheshire east about this,
Never mind election aren’t far away.🧐
By Senroc
Another disgrace we don’t need more houses we don’t have the infrastructure to support them, what about the right to a decent life of the people who already live there
By Ian
Yet again CE lose, having gone against officers’ recommendation. High time the law was changed so that members pick up the appellants cost when they lose in these circumstances. That would put an immediate stop to this nonsense. Officers are the councils professionals, that’s why they employ them. Members are mostly amateurs, many with egos, and many who don’t know what they are doing, other than simply trying to curry favour with their electorate and cling on to their seats. That n itself is contrary to how local government is mandated to operate and thus totally unacceptable behaviour.
By Grumpy Old Git
Build on brownfield & stop using up farmland.Once its gone its gone.
By Chris Batey
This land was sold by the PDSA. It had been a bequest from a local woman who loved animals and nature. Shocking loss of land. Don’t leave assets to charity. Sandbach has had thousands of new builds over the last decade… we don’t need any more.
By Anonymous
@Anonymous, 2:13pm – if the donor wanted the land to be protected from being developed in the future, there are legal mechanisms that would have enabled this. If a charity is given land that could be sold to fund charitable work, then they would be crazy not to.
By Anonymous
Cheshire East Council and the developers are not providing any infrastructure for all these homes. They are soleless boxes with no trees planted. Areas for wildlife and recreation. Tiny gardens with no privacy. It’s just greed on the side of developers and planners who most likely live in large houses with privacy and surrounded by countryside. Unfortunately Cheshire will have no countryside or wildlife left soon 😡
By Anonymous
Although this housing decision would not directly impact me I am concerned that the environmental impact would be far greater than thought due to the loss of wildlife in that area, we may be the dominant species but does that give us the right to destroy the countryside that others rely on, this is a very bad decision.
By ANGELA DRAYCOTT
Anonymous @ 3.34pm. In a sea of ill informed commentary, based on false certainties, parochialism and fundamental misunderstandings of principles and process, your comment about planners living in large houses surrounded by countryside has been a stand out example of how little people actually know on this topic. I expect it’s given my fellow planners a huge but hollow laugh as well. Suffice to say, whatever your own day job is, please don’t give it up.
By A Planner
Absolutely disgraceful…the local council knows the impact best….the traffic is already horrendous and this won’t help. No extra dentists or drs either 😡
By Anonymous
Lets have an update on the targets now that all planning applications get passed. 3.3 must be out of date.
By Not so daft
Yes we need lots of housing but these are going to impact on good green farmland there is plenty of space on brown belt land ,also there will be an affordable housing clause but homes at 250000 are not really affordable to the vast majority
By Graham
Inspectors using the FIFA playbook again
By Anonymous
What constitutes severe harm to a semi rural area? This development presents 300+ homes , with an average of 2 cars per household with one road in and out of Sandbach , adding to the the traffic that accumulates when their is an incident on the M6 does not constitute ” moderate harm” . Environmentally the area in it’s current state creates a stable habitat for a wide variety of wildlife , witnessed first hand as a local resident. Policy and Remit over environment and sustainability.
By Anonymous
Further housing in West Heath was discussed back in 2002! Infrastructure has not changed, and housing has increased, hence the ongoing issues. Will CEC ever listen or learn? NO, the additional community charge income is obviously more important to them!
By Another dissatisfied resident
Sick! No democracy when a government overturns a passionate community.
By Anonymous
a) The planning process isn’t a democratic one; it’s quasi-judicial; b) The government is voted in via the current democratic process; c) Just because some people have an opinion, that is not the only (valid) issue – other factors are relevant; d) Please ensure you cut and keep this comment so that you can ignore it next time you want to make a contribution here.
By Democracy Derek