Fox wins Sandbach appeal
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has overruled Cheshire East Council and a planning inspector to grant Fox Strategic Land & Property consent on appeal for housing near Sandbach.
The application has spent two years going through public inquiry, High Court and Court of Appeal hearings between Fox and Cheshire East.
Following the 2011 public inquiry planning inspector Ruth MacKenzie refused the outline planning consent for 280 units on land off Abbey Road and Middlewich Road.
Pickles disagreed with his inspector and granted consent for Congleton-based Fox, controlled by developer David Gladman, subject to an improved affordable housing allocation.
In his letter published in the past few days, Pickles said Cheshire East did not have five years' supply of deliverable housing sites identified as required under his planning regime and the borough faced a "serious and significant shortage" of sites.
He asked that the level of affordable housing be set at 35% of units not 30% desired by Fox.
Fox is likely to sell the site onto house builders now, being one of the region's more active residential land dealers in the past couple of years.
Both parties were unavailable for comment.
- The full decision letter is available on the Government website here
