'Awful mess' if housing sites decided after public enquiry

Potential development sites in Alderley Edge will not be considered for inclusion in the Cheshire East Local Plan until next year.

This has raised serious concerns amongst local councillors as it is understood that the Local Plan will go to public enquiry in Spring 2014, therefore before any decisions are made regarding potential housing sites in the village.

Last week Cheshire East Council (CEC) unveiled its proposed development sites for potential inclusion in the final Local Plan but there was no mention of sites in Alderley Edge which have previously been highlighted - such as land to the north of Beech Road and land at Ryleys Farm.

I contacted Cllr Michael Jones, Leader of Cheshire East Council, for clarification as to why none of the Alderley Edge sites included in the Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA), which is required by national planning policy and a key component of the evidence used to inform housing policy within the Cheshire East Local Plan, had been mentioned in the document presented to the Strategic Planning Board last week.

Michael Jones told me "The first thing we are doing is the Core Strategy which is the large sites which is where the majority of our new housing will come from and that is what we are doing at the moment.

"Next year we will look at smaller sites and what we call local service centres and village sites. Because we are putting so many houses in the core sites there is no drive for a great number of houses in other sites but it depends on local need which is community driven, community led.

"Alderley Edge is a local service delivery centre. We've got about 14 of them and we've allocated up to 2500 houses. Holmes Chapel has already got quite a lot of houses being built there, they're taking a big number so the number for a local service delivery centre could be as low as 50 or as high as 120."

Councillor Jones confirmed that proposals to build hundreds of houses on land at Ryleys Farm or to the north of Beech Road "will not be discussed anywhere until we call for smaller sites next year, nothing as been agreed."

Six sites in Alderley Edge which could accommodate up to 2000 new homes were included in the SHLAA, which was approved in February 2013. The largest of which was land at Ryleys Farm where Cheshire East says 1,460 homes could be built and land north of Beech Road which could accommodate up to 327 new dwellings.

Local residents were also consulted about the Green Belt land to the north of Beech Road earlier in May as it was one of 27 additional sites proposed by developers and land owners for inclusion in the Local Plan.

Speaking at this week's Parish Council meeting, Cllr Frank Keegan said "The Local Plan is going to be going to the public enquiry stage next Spring. The worrying part about all that is they have not defined where the 2500 houses for the local centres are going to be and Alderley Edge is one of those local centres. It seems they are not going to decide the 2500 until after the public enquiry but they cannot be asking the public enquiry to actually give them a block of 2500 and they will decide."

He added "They say it is going to be decided some time in 2014 but if it is going to public enquiry in the Spring and it's still not decided then it's going to be an awful mess. The Ryleys Farm site can take a thousand and the Beech Road site could take 250 to 300 so we need to be careful and keep an eye on these things going through."

Cllr Frank Keegan then explained he'd been asked to contact the landowner of the land north of Beech Road following a meeting Cheshire East Council had held with Valerie Sims regarding the future development of land her and her brothers own between Alderley Edge and Wilmslow.

He said "It was organised by the regeneration people and the housing Cabinet member was there. They were having this meeting and discussing it. Why on earth were these people having discussions?"

Cllr Mike Williams commented "This is officers and people involved with regeneration meeting landowners who want to develop the Green Belt between Alderley and Wilmslow without actually consulting either Wilmslow or Alderley councils. They had not even told us the meetings were taking place, nobody has written to the Parish Council and told them a meeting has taken place."

He added "The point is this is going to go to the public enquiry and we have not been consulted. None of the villages that form this third tier have been consulted and Cheshire East has no intention of consulting us."

Parish Councillors decided to approach Wilmslow Town Council to have a meeting with them about this land north of Beech Road as the site straddles the boundary between Alderley Edge and Wilmslow.

The Local Plan is an important document that will be the Development Plan for Cheshire East and form the basis of planning decisions until 2030. It will deliver 27,000 new houses and 20,000 new jobs in Cheshire East over the next 20 years.

The final Core Strategy was scheduled to be brought to Full Council in October, however this has now been delayed to allow a further six week public consultation to be undertaken on the final Draft Core Strategy.

A Portfolio Meeting will be held on 5th November where the final Draft Core Strategy document will be reviewed and the six week consultation public process is expected to start on 5th November and finish on 16th December 2013.

Tags:

Beech Road, Cheshire East Council, Local Plan, Ryleys Farm, SHLAA