Cheshire East’s planning system has come under fire again – this time from a resident at a public meeting who questioned the ‘transparency and fairness of the process’, writes Belinda Ryan.
David Teal was speaking at a meeting of the northern planning committee about an application for one house on land at Bollington.
The proposal was later approved by councillors.
But during the meeting Mr Teal said: “I have significant concerns regarding the transparency and fairness of the process followed for this application.
“There have been two previous refusals for this piece of land and I anticipated that a further submission would be made but, despite looking at the Cheshire East planning portal, the application never appeared there.
“Was it not for a chance sighting of a comment on Facebook by a councillor, I would have been totally unaware of this planning application.”
He added: “Even after becoming aware of the application, it was not possible to find it on the Cheshire East planning portal using the site address in various cases – upper case, lower case, – location tools that allow you to search actual areas or recent applications.
“It could only be found by typing in the specific application number.”
Senior planning officer Tim Poupard told the meeting: “There was an initial issue with the application, because it was a transition point with the new IT system that made its appearance on the website temperamental at best.”
Complaints about the portal have become commonplace since the system was ‘upgraded’ towards the end of 2024.
In October of last year, Cheshire East acknowledged there were problems with its ‘reliability’ and said it is working with the supplier to make further improvements.
This was after reports 87 residents had complained in one day to a campaign group that they had been unable to lodge objections against a large housing development for Sandbach.
This week a Cheshire East councillor told the Local Democracy Reporting Service she would be taking the matter up with the council after residents in the northern part of the borough had contacted her with issues around the planning portal.
She said she would also be asking why residents had to create an account on the planning portal before they could comment on applications.
Totally agree with transparency, but no matter how many times ratepayers voice objections, it will never work in their favour. Only people going to win are the developers and the council who are kowtowing to the current government’s manifesto on building houses in any location, at whatever cost to the environment.