Dear Editor
I read Cllr Sam Corcoran’s recent letter to the borough’s wider press, with some incredulity, particularly with regard to planning matters.
He expounds that the “flood of speculative housing applications in Cheshire East when the Conservatives were in charge has now dried up”, releasing his letter in conjunction with the CE media release this week, confirming that the Inspector has approved Part 2 of the Local Plan (SADPD as it’s also referred to).
But of course there is so much more to this heroic tale.
Let’s be clear, the main strategic housing sites of a Local Plan are determined in Part 1 (not the SADPD).
This task was shouldered by the last Conservative administration, who despite following the national process, were required by the Inspector, to include additional strategic sites in the North of the Borough to meet the housing needs of the local population. (His letter is in the Local Plan library on the CE website!)
The enforced delay did indeed, enable speculative developers to bring forward non-planned developments, (outside the emerging Local Plan allocations), that were passed by the Inspectorate in the absence of a five-year housing supply or a completed Local Plan!
The pressure on exemplary CE Planning Officers during this period cannot be over-stated and so It was with great relief, that this “flood of speculative housing applications” halted when the substantive Local Plan (Part 1) was completed in July 2017.
So let us not forget one important fact, that this is the same Local Plan that was unanimously opposed by Cllr Sam Corcoran himself, together with his Labour Party colleagues, who wanted to start again – a proposal that would have subjected Cheshire East to even more years of speculative development, with an even greater loss of open countryside and greenbelt land! (On record in the council minutes and the public read “all about it” in the local press at the time).
But on a slightly brighter note, this rash of unplanned, speculative housing applications was recognised by the Inspectorate and identified as “windfall development” that could be set against the development requirements of the SADPD, (with its focus on “smaller settlements and rural areas”), meaning that in fact, virtually no extra site allocations were needed or accepted.
All was progressing well; the second of two SADPD consultations took place in September 2018, was scheduled for submission in Spring/Summer 2019 with a predicted completion date of December 2019.
But in May 2019, Cllr Corcoran’s Labour-Independent Coalition, halted the SADPD, ostensibly because there were ‘too many houses in the Local Plan’.
Of course many Labour and Independent candidates (now Councillors), had campaigned in their literature, amongst other things, on the promises of removing sites from the Green Belt and finding a new site for the Gypsy & Traveller Transit Site.
Despite this ongoing delay, it must be said that the SADPD and associated supplementary planning documents, do include some useful new policies in line with new Government initiatives; for example, biodiversity and climate change (so Cllr Corcoran cannot claim these for his own).
Indeed, the SADPD remains largely comprised of the same sound planning policies designed under the previous administration – and thank goodness for that, because most of the Neighbourhood Plans developed by proactive Parish and Town Councils across the Borough, during this period, had to design their own planning policies to be compliant with the emerging SADPD.
It is fair to say, that some green belt sites will not be developed, but don’t be be lulled into a sense of false security.
They have been re-designated as ‘Safeguarded Land’ meaning that they will all be considered again when the next Local Plan is developed – which starts in just three years time in readiness for 2030.
The development of a Local Plan is long, complex and painful, but necessary if we are to meet the future housing needs of all our residents.
Access to a decent home is a fundamental human right and the formation of a suitable plan is a statutory requirement of planning authorities like Cheshire East.
It’s therefore important that as these planning policies finally come to fruition, politicians must not get so caught up in the heady rhetoric of the moment, that they forget exactly how the plan evolved and their own pivotal role(s) in it.
After all, it’s all documented and the rhetoric must match the public record.
So to conclude, whatever did happen about that Transit site? Yes you’ve guessed it.
After nearly three years of delay, and the eye-watering costs associated with that delay, the Labour/Independent administration have had to concede that the only place for this vital borough facility is exactly where it was originally proposed.
Yours
Cllr Janet Clowes
Wybunbury Ward
Conservative Group Leader
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