The Government has offered to send experts to assist Cheshire East Council with their Local Plan.
Planning Minister, Nick Boles announced during a parliamentary debate on Thursday, 24th October, that he will sending experts from his department, which could include the former Chief Planning Inspector, to assist CEC with their Local Plan which will guide development up to 2030.
The announcement came after David Rutley, MP for Macclesfield, raised concerns about issues relating to the latest developments with the Local Plan that could have a lasting impact on the shape of our communities.
David asked the Planning Minister, MP Nick Boles, whether Cheshire East Council and other councils across the country were actually required to set out how they would achieve indicative house building targets to 2050, rather than just focus on the current 2030 Local Plan time horizon.
He pointed out that any requirement to achieve 2050 targets would lead to large areas of Green Belt being so-called 'safeguarded' for development, including land in Poynton and south-west Macclesfield, where up to 3,000 houses could be developed. David went on to say that he was very concerned that this approach could also lead to hundreds of local residents becoming victims of planning blight.
Other land identified for safeguarding in the latest document, the Pre-submission Core Strategy, includes 26 hectares of Safeguarded Land off Prestbury Road, 14 hectares off Upcast Lane and 26 hectares adjacent to the proposed North Cheshire Growth Village in Handforth East.
Nick Boles replied stating that the planning horizon was definitely to 2030 and that there were no requirements to plan beyond this period.
He said, "Anybody who is suggesting that there is any requirement to safeguard land for the future development between 2030 and 2050 is getting it wrong."
The Minister added that he would send relevant experts from his department, which might include the former Chief Planning Inspector, to Cheshire East to assist with this important task.
Campaigners who are continuing their fight to protect Wilmslow's green spaces from development have welcomed this news.
Residents of Wilmslow (RoW) have written to the Planning Minister, Nick Boles to request a meeting with the appointed Chief Planning Inspector and to ask whether the consultation on the draft Core Strategy should be postponed whilst the document is reviewed.
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Now today you run a story which is that the Planning Minister is to send in his Officials and a former Chief Planning Officer to help get the Local Plan in shape. The Planning Minister, Nick Boles, is quoted as saying, in Parliament, that anyone who attempts to safeguard land is getting things seriously wrong.
The Consultation started with Macclesfield contributing over 6,000 houses out of the 27,000 houses to be built during the life of the plan. Then the SMDA (South Macc Deve Area) which accounted for 850 of the 6,000+ houses in Macc is knocked out of the plans and treated as safeguarded land. Why? Is SMDA able to be developed now? If not, what will change after 2030? I suspect the site is not a suitable site, which is what we felt at MBC.
These sudden changes should make us wary in Alderley Edge. The 27,000 houses include 2,500 to be delivered from "smaller local settlements", although no allocation has yet been identified. Alderley Edge is part of the smaller local settlements, but no one knows what part of the 2,500 is being targeted from AE.
The SHLAA (identifying suitable sites for potential development) including sites in
Cheshire East totalling 50,000 houses, and as part of that number, Alderley Edge included over 2,000 houses. If sites within the local area keep falling out of the original target figures, we need to be alive locally to ensure that we do not suffer from mission creep by default.
At a meeting last week Adrian Fisher, head of Cheshire East Council planning department, clarified certain announcements by Nick Boles which have been incorrectly reported as suggesting that a senior government expert will be seconded to assist Cheshire East with its Local Plan. What was actually said was a general offer to all councils that they can seek advice on policy from a recently retired senior government inspector.