Cheshire East prepares for appeal fights over 500 homes

Cheshire East Council’s next planning committee is due to approve the development of 310 homes, and at the same meeting is outlining its reasons for the refusal of 550 homes as it prepares for three appeals.

The strategic planning board will meet on Wednesday 24 February.

Planning officers have recommended that plans from Barratt Homes, for 230 houses at Old Mill Road in Sandbach, are approved. The application includes details of roads, sewers, boundary treatments and garages.

Off Broughton Road in Crewe, Wulvern Housing and MCI Developments are due to receive consent for 81 affordable homes, made up of 10 three-bedroom houses, 45 two-bedroom houses, and 26 apartments.

At the same meeting, the council is updating members on its reasons behind a series of large planning refusals, in advance of upcoming appeals.

In Sandbach, in 2015 the council refused plans for 200 homes and a community facility by Himor Group on land west of Crewe Road. The council said that it had blocked the development as the scale of the scheme was premature, and that it would result in the loss of open countryside.

Also in Sandbach, Fox Strategic Land & Property was refused planning permission for 165 homes off Abbey Road, despite the site being next to a plot which has outline permission for 280 homes. The reason for the refusal was that the scheme was in conflict with the draft Sandbach Neighbourhood Plan, which has since been approved.

In Holmes Chapel, Gladman Developments had proposed 190 homes and commercial space on land off London Road. The council deemed that the project represented a unsustainable form of development in open countryside.