Plan proposing three Alderley sites for development approved for consultation

Cheshire East Council is to move forward on the next phase of Cheshire East's development plan which includes proposals for three new housing developments in Alderley Edge.

The site allocations and development policies document (SADPD), which forms the second part of the council's Local Plan, was considered by members of the authority's cabinet today (Tuesday, 6th August).

Members agreed to move towards the next round of public consultation on the draft document which, once finalised, will provide the approved framework for housing, employment, and other key infrastructure sites up to 2030.

Following directly on from the Local Plan Strategy adopted in 2017, the SADPD provides policies to guide new development, including housing, mainly within the smaller towns and larger villages - including Alderley Edge.

The majority of development needs have already been provided for through the Local Plan Strategy. The sites in the SADPD will be non-strategic – generally sites of fewer than 60 homes or two hectares (five acres) in size.

The SADPD identifies for development in the local service centres of Alderley Edge, Audlem, Bollington, Chelford, Disley, Holmes Chapel, Mobberley and Prestbury.

In sites allocated for development in Alderley Edge are:

Site ALD 1 - Land adjacent to Jenny Heyes The land adjacent to Jenny Heyes is allocated for residential development for around 10 new homes. This greenfield site is 0.47 ha in size and is located to the north east of Alderley Edge, on Heyes Lane.

Site ALD 2 - Ryleys Farm, north of Chelford Road The land at Ryleys Farm, north of Chelford Road is allocated for residential development for around 45 new homes. This greenfield site is 1.6 ha in size and is located to the west of Alderley Edge, north of Chelford Road.

Site ALD 4 - Land north of Beech Road The land north of Beech Road is allocated for residential development for around 35 new homes.This greenfield site is 2.9 ha in size and is located to the north of Alderley Edge, north of Beech Road.

Additionally safeguarded land is identified in Green Belt areas and may be required to meet longer-term development needs.

Land allocated for safeguarding in Alderley Edge is:

Site ALD 3 - Ryleys Farm (safeguarded) Land at Ryleys Farm is designated as 2.70 ha of safeguarded land. It remains in the open countryside and is not allocated for development at the present time.

The public consultation will start on Wednesday 14th August, continuing for a period of 6 weeks.

Seconding the recommendation to begin the six-week consultation period, Councillor Craig Browne said: "Whilst I am pleased to support the recommendation, it is important for us to remember that a consultation is an opportunity for the Council to listen to the views of residents and to consider their feedback. We welcome alternative suggestions where these are accompanied by strong evidence to support that they represent a better option."

When adopted, the SADPD will replace the old policies of the three former borough local plans, covering Macclesfield, Congleton and Crewe and Nantwich, dating back to 2004, and address current planning issues – such as climate change mitigation, housing for older people and improving the quality and variety of new homes.

Councillor Toni Fox, Cheshire East Council cabinet member for planning, said: "This plan takes account of consultation responses to the draft document published last September and I'm gratified that extra effort has been made in recent months to engage with town and parish councils about the proposals.

"Having reviewed the options, we recognised the need to have a robust and up-to-date planning framework to avoid further unplanned and speculative developments that took place in our borough in recent years. To reflect the changed planning guidance from Whitehall, we are putting in place a raft of refreshed planning policies that will better equip us to shape and manage sustainable development in Cheshire East.

"As well as updating our planning policies, the SADPD identifies new development areas to meet the needs of some settlements and particular sections of our communities. Among these are plans for fresh residential sites for Gypsies and Travellers and a new transit site to provide safe and regulated accommodation for those passing through the borough.

"In some locations, small allocations are proposed in the greenbelt. This is necessary to meet localised needs in those villages and to ensure no further greenbelt changes are made until at least the 2040s.

"Completion of the site allocations plan is an important step towards securing a strong and resilient basis for planning in Cheshire East, including maintaining a five-year supply of housing land. We want to be able to review our Local Plan in future from a position of strength – without risking a planning free-for all."

In 2018/19 a record 3,062 new homes were completed in Cheshire East.

Cllr Fox added: "Despite increased home building, our five-year supply continues to be challenged by sections of the development industry, determined to promote sites outside the Local Plan. The current Local Plan target of 1,800 homes per year is reflective of past economic ambitions and is almost 50 per cent higher than the government's own calculation of housing need for the borough using their new methodology.

"We want to move promptly to a position where our five-year supply targets properly reflect the revised approach towards identifying housing requirements using the national methodology – and so we will be looking to assess which parts of Local Plan Strategy need to be reviewed and updated.

"To do this, we need to move on with the rest of the Local Plan and so publish the SADPD for formal consultation. This will allow the plan to progress to external examination, where all parties can seek independent scrutiny."

The document is available online and residents can comment directly via an online consultation portal on the council's website.

The deadline for receipt of comments by the council is 5pm on 30th September.

The council's strategic planning team is available to answer any questions about the consultation and provide assistance to anyone wishing to comment on the SADPD document via email or by phoning 01270 685893.

Tags:
Local Plan, Site Allocations and Development Policies
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Comments

Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.

Graham McLelland
Wednesday 7th August 2019 at 3:29 pm
Site Ald4 , How are building materials ,heavy wagons traffic going to get to this area?
1 Over the railway bridge Davey Lane Elmfield rd Beech road??? Considering the number of pedestrians using this route for schools work etc , many pushing children,the narrow bridge bend ,the heavy through traffic Heyes Lane to main road ??This routes is unsafe now let alone making it have an increase of traffic
2 Heyes Lane to Oakfield road,Beech Road,this way is narrow and made more so by parked cars and bends.Again already dangerous.
There isnt another way.

Then there is a large green circular garden in middle of Wood Gardens with one way signs ,already heavy vehicles coming this way end up having to reverse or go over the grass .
And to build properties on land that when this estate was built in 47/48/49 was to include a new primary school on that land but when it was found to be marked FLOOD PLAIN those plans were scrapped
I hope that all concerned voice their views .
My view is that it is a stupid dangerous plan and should be scrapped
Jon Williams
Wednesday 7th August 2019 at 7:10 pm
Totally agree Graham, the access is not suitable, nor the site.
Same for ALD1 - on a narrow road bend, madness !
Mathew Owen
Thursday 8th August 2019 at 6:22 am
Are they having a laugh why do we need more houses built on already diminishing green land, too many idiots here already !
Alan Brough
Thursday 8th August 2019 at 8:00 am
Graham McLelland is spot-on with his observations. There is NO safe or easy access to the proposed site that doesn't involve putting heavy goods vehicles into dangerously close proximity to pedestrians and/or residents on Heyes Lane or the approaches to the Bollin Fields Estate.

The low-lying land is (as Graham says) a flood plain taking water from the estate,The Circuit and the bypass development and it's not unusual to see large parts of it under water for several months of the year.

I'd also like to take issue with the oft-used and ironic term "Safeguarded Land" - it's easy to assume that this refers to land that has been protected from development when, in fact, the opposite is the case - it's been safeguarded for use by Planners and Developers.
Terry Bowes
Thursday 8th August 2019 at 4:54 pm
The only safe access would be a totally new road down the track off Heyes Lane but this would open up the rest of the fields to developers. Imagine the aftermath though! 35 new houses = at least 70 plus cars possibly leaving through the estate creating absolute mayhem in an already conjested area. If this plan also includes the 17 new allotments as per the original plan it will definitely get passed as it will then free up Heyes Lane plots for car parking.
Tony Haluradivth
Thursday 8th August 2019 at 8:45 pm
The whole site is on a flood plain this is just sheer madness where and on whom will all the displaced water go? (Preferably on to the Jones site ...as sn act of divine retribution).
Heyes lane will become gridlocked at peak evening times with the school buses carving their way throgh the mayhem. This is a stupid, crazy, ill conceived and SHORTSIGHTED plan...
Graham McLelland
Monday 12th August 2019 at 8:00 am
from 1961 to 70 I lived in Beech road.I remember our neighbours digging a pit in their garage to enable them to work on their cars under cover.It took a whole weekend for 3 to dig that pit,on the monday morning it wwas full of water.I would be very worried if iI lived on Beech Rd/Close because the farmers who owned that land behind and to the side of Beech road and Beech close repeatedly tried to drain it and failed.
Steven Mccrory
Tuesday 13th August 2019 at 12:30 pm
Nobody ever wants there domain intruded upon or embrace change. Always an excuse or objection thrown in to delay everything that is already delayed by the red tape brigade and tree huggers. What the area needs and urgently is new affordable and starter homes. Not £650k plus for the minority. You only have to look over Cheshire etc on take off from the airport to see the green and wasted land. Do I want houses everywhere, not at all, do I want the beauty spots ruined not all, but we need more affordable new homes and now!
Duncan Herald
Wednesday 14th August 2019 at 8:03 am
Steven,
try to get, from some Authority or other, what 'they' mean by 'affordable housing' in terms of size of house and cost of building house.
I've asked but no reply has been forthcoming.
Surely if Cheshire East and/or Parish Council and or Neighbourhood Plan are serious about building 'affordable housing' there must be costings etc. in existance?
If not, wht not?
Jon Williams
Wednesday 14th August 2019 at 8:58 am
30% will be bought by Housing Associations and rented for about £450 a month - 'affordable housing'
Graham McLelland
Thursday 15th August 2019 at 6:56 am
Steven,what I wrote is not NIMBYISM .it is just palin common sense.I take it you do not know Bolinfields estate,nor have you walked along the very narrow footpaths on DaveyLane .You should see the difficulty parents have now pushing buggies etc going too and from the schools ,village trains .I have lived here for 70 yrs I have seen the estate develope ,the same can be said of walking Heywood rd ,Oakfield rd, Heyes lane.I have also seen many attempts by the farmers to drain that land and fail.So i say to you please walk those footpaths and see for yourself.
Alan Brough
Thursday 15th August 2019 at 9:37 am
Hi Duncan,

I posted this on a previous thread you were involved in because, like you, I was unsure what "affordable meant" and how it was quantified.

https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-7747

Hope it helps.
Diana Bullock
Thursday 15th August 2019 at 11:39 am
Graham, like you, I have lived on the estate for over seventy years and entirely agree with your comments.
Duncan Herald
Thursday 15th August 2019 at 1:35 pm
Hi Alan,
thanks. I did see it last time; it seems to me to be 'talking' around the subject a little.
Can you or I, from what is written there, work out the price of affordable housing in Alderley Edge?
In my case, probably not!
I can but repeat that which I have written before: let some of the local authorities name/price the cost in real money of affordable housing.
But, I repeat myself again, before a price can be worked out, a decision must be made as to what 'size' affordable housing should be (or even of a range)..
Alan Brough
Thursday 15th August 2019 at 2:36 pm
Hi Duncan,

Yes, as may be expected where Government & Politics is concerned there is an awful lot of skating around the issue. However if you open the PDF attachment you will see much more detail about the various forms of "Affordable" housing - Social Housing, Private Rented Accomodation or "Route to Market / Low cost Housing"

If we are talking about new build developments then (if I understand it correctly) ten percent of the development should be affordable. That means that it should be priced at 20 percent below the local average market value.
Yvonne Bentley
Thursday 15th August 2019 at 3:34 pm
With regard to new build developments, although they have to supply affordable housing, the developer does not have to build them on that particular development ( as happened with Alderley Park) .
Tony Haluradivth
Thursday 15th August 2019 at 6:31 pm
So greedy shameful developers lapping up Government subsidies..
Graham McLelland
Saturday 17th August 2019 at 1:57 pm
I am not sure what "Affordable housing "is but surely what is going to be a high cost to drain that land will be put on the price of the houses?When one looks at what the builders had to pay for parts of Alderley Park you can see why houses of over£ 1 000,000 are being built being built.
Duncan Herald
Sunday 18th August 2019 at 8:34 am
Hi Alan,
just a brief thought; care to make a wager as to there being no affordable housing put up in A.E.in the next year but an increase in Section 106 monies into Cheshire East?
Tony Haluradivth
Sunday 18th August 2019 at 9:27 am
I understood "affordable" housing to mean reasonable cost houses to accommodate our "key workers" i.e Police, Fire Brigade , Ambulance (plus other NHS staff), also Teachers and young people who have had generations of their family in the same area not being priced out of first time homes. If all these folk cannot afford the village and surrounding areas where do they go? I do not want to see this part of the world turning into hideous sealed gated communities where footballers and "Slebrities" keep themselves to themselves. As Graham has pointed out there would be the need for a huge properly maintained pumping station on site to keep the land permanently drained. It is greedy and foolhardy anyway this idea to build on an historical flood plain. The section of Heyes Lane down by Emerson is a bubbling brook at the moment and some have mooted that the land earmarked for these houses belongs to Jones Homes I think it is a private individual who owns this land.
Alan Brough
Monday 19th August 2019 at 8:05 am
Duncan,

I certainly wouldn't take that wager.

There needs to be far more transparency around Section 106 development.

I'd speculate that affordable housing is being built in places like Sandbach, Holmes Chapel and Macclesfield but places like Alderley Edge and Wilmslow are where Developers look to
offset their losses.

The effect, as Tony points out above, is to change the local demographic quite markedly with "common people" (such as I) priced out of the area.

But I'm not bitter; the noise of Maseratis and Ferraris racing along the bypass on these warm summer evenings is becoming tiresome.
Duncan Herald
Monday 19th August 2019 at 8:15 am
Hi Alan,

its a long time since I was in any way involved in planning for house building BUT back in the day (if my memory is still o.k.) there was a 'rule' that there was no 'need' to include affordable housing in a development unless a certain total of houses was reached (was it over 40?).
Am I mis-remembering? and/or is there any such 'rule' now?
David Carey
Tuesday 3rd September 2019 at 2:54 pm
Looking carefully at the above, this bit seems to very important -
"In some locations, small allocations are proposed in the greenbelt. This is necessary to meet localised needs in those villages and to ensure no further greenbelt changes are made until at least the 2040s".
What it actually means by 'small allocations' is the question, what exactly is small? and realistically in my opinion we shouldn't be even contemplating touching the green belt at all!