The Secretary of State has kicked out Muller Homes’ appeal to build the first phase of a 1,100-home development in Stapeley, Nantwich.
The announcement, a year since a four-day public inquiry into the appeal, has been welcomed by campaigners and councillors alike.
Muller Developments appealed against Cheshire East Council’s refusal to grant planning permission for the first 189-homes on land off Peter de Stapleigh Way, Stapeley, Nantwich, as well as for an access road into the proposed development off Peter de Stapleigh Way.
But this has now been rejected by Secretary of State Eric Pickles after months of deliberation.
Nantwich South and Stapeley Councillors Andrew Martin and Peter Groves have welcomed the news.
In a joint statement, they said the decision was a “victory for common sense, against the tide of developers wanting to build unwanted, unplanned, and unsustainable developments, on both green belt and open countryside”.
They added: “The decision will be very warmly welcomed by local residents, who have fought a long campaign against the loss of a much-loved piece of open countryside and who are already deeply concerned as to how the town’s infrastructure will cope with the very substantial number of new homes, already planned for the area.”
The councillors were joined by Stapeley Parish Council and MP Edward Timpson in fighting the plans.
A series of public meetings were held and a 1,500-strong petition was gathered and submitted.
Campaigners like Pat Cullen, of Protect Stapeley, also added weight to the fight.
It is a good thing that rampant developers are being stopped from building on greenfield sites, but it should also be recognised that this decision by Pickles was a shoe-in, supporting a council which is opposed to the development AND overwhelmingly Tory dominated.
If you want to find consistency in Pickles’ rulings don’t bother looking at his over-ruling of the planning refusal for a huge, ugly, publicly-hated, expensive, out-dated and polluting waste incineration plant in the middle of the rural Severn Vale, directly in front of the Cotswold AONB.
On that occasion a small majority of powerful and corrupt Tories rode rough-shod over public opinion, formed a worryingly comfortable relationship with their “selected contractors” (including Tory Party donors Balfour Beatty) and broke every rule, every precept of proper democratic process and every tenet of decent and honest behaviour in forcing their plan through.
They even signed a secret contract, committing public funds to underwrite the contractors’ losses in the event of a planning refusal, which gave the contractors all the security they needed to appeal against that unanimous refusal and just wait for Pickles to wave their nice little money-spinner through.
Stroud District Council are now fighting Pickles in the High Court… but many of those who live in the part of Gloucestershire where this outrageous travesty of justice will potentially be built have now firmly decided to do everything they can to remove as many Tories from office, both nationally and locally, as they possibly can.
The Citizens of Stapeley can rest easy, having received the answer they wanted, but perhaps a few will dwell on the utterly biased manner in which Pickles inflicts his decisions upon our people.
This one politician now meddles more widely in our everyday lives than any other man in modern history.
He left Communism some years ago, defecting (strangely perhaps) right across to the Conservatives… which has seen him rise and rise… but we should always remain wary of a “career politician” who makes up “policy” on the hoof, always to suit his Party and himself rather than the people whom he is paid to serve and has already been found to be issuing orders which turn out to be illegal.
Be very careful about Pickles in the future… his behaviour is more like that of some Nazi Gauleiter than a Conservative Minister of State !
That’s brilliant news. Congratulations to all! x
Yay!