Cheshire East planning officers are urging councillors not to defend an appeal from Nightingale Land to build 75 homes in the open countryside at Nantwich, writes Belinda Ryan.
The company wants to build the dwellings on a 3.83-hectare field off Broad Lane, in Stapeley.
The scheme also includes bulldozing the bungalow at number 6 Broad Lane to create an access to the site.
Officers had recommended the application be approved but the strategic planning board (SPB) deferred it twice in March for a traffic assessment to identity any cumulative impact.
This was because councillors are aware applications for about 700 more homes are in the pipeline at two other sites within a few hundred yards of each other off Broad Lane.
The matter is due back before the strategic planning board next week with the original approval recommendation still on the agenda.
But the planning officer’s report states: “Since the last committee deferral of March 25, the applicant has however submitted an appeal against the non-determination of the application.
“They have chosen to appeal by means of the written representations process and are also seeking a costs award on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour – effectively as they do not believe the reasons for deferral are reasonable and it is unnecessarily delaying the decision.
“As can be seen from the original committee report, officers recommended that the application be approved.
“This remains the recommendation here, however as an appeal has now been lodged SPB are asked to reconsider that decision, and in this case, agree to not defend the appeal.”
It adds if councillors reach a different outcome than the recommendation then they need to provide the reasons so the appeal can be defended.
The report points out the applicant has previously provided a legal opinion from Kings Chambers advising there is no justification for seeking a cumulative assessment of the proposal.
It continues: “Officers agree that there is no legal basis in which to require this application for up to 75 dwellings, to take into account the cumulative impacts from much larger live applications which do not yet have a decision or recommendation and remains some time off doing so.
“There are no severe highway impacts from this scheme.”
At one of the March meetings, Stapeley Parish councillor Jo Hillman had told the committee a cumulative assessment was “imperative”.
“We cannot stress how inadequate this road is for all these houses and until there’s a fatality, nobody’s going to take us seriously,” she said.
The strategic planning board meeting takes place at Crewe Municipal Buildings at 10.30am on Tuesday, June 9.
No more! Absolutely not. Residents of Nantwich are sick and tired of their small market town being turned into a singular enormous housing estate.
In Nantwich, there’s not a single new doctor, dentist, school. But in the last 20 years it’s doubled in size.
All the extra land had been bought up be these greedy companies waiting until the price was right to build and make more profit.
Riddle me this, if there’s not a single extra resource gone into Nantwich, but the residents living the have doubled, why have our rates not halved?
Our current structure is crumbling! I’m disabled and I’ve been waiting for a ramp to use a wheelchair for nearly a year (and all I’m told is, “I’m on the list”).
Care for your CURRENT residents before bringing in even more.
All these speculative applications in completely inappropriate locations could be avoided if we stopped electing MPs hellbent on building millions of houses and imposing unrealistic targets on councils to do so.
All these speculative applications in completely inappropriate locations could be avoided if Cheshire East got their act together and had the right strategy in place for housing supply. Any reference to the previous strategic plan seems to have disappeared these days and developers are taking full advantage of this by building houses wherever they can find land.
Well said Jo Hillman they won’t be happy until someone is killed on that road ,how many of the planning committee live in or around this area .look at Broad lane now then think of another 1000 car’s on it soon .is Nantwich the only place that Cheshire East have to build houses or is it the old saying not in my back yard.