Gladman lodges plans for up to 120 homes

Cheshire East Council confirmed this afternoon it has received a planning application from Gladman Developments to build homes on land in Audlem at Little Heath.

The application for outline planning permission has yet to be fully validated and registered but a spokeswoman said: "I can confirm we have received an outline planning application for up to 120 homes."

Once the company's controversial proposal is registered by the planning department full details will be logged on the council's website.

The original proposal to build on the 5.5 acres green field site at Little Heath sparked outrage from more than 100 villagers a special meeting called by Audlem Parish Council to discuss the development.

Since then the Parish Council has pledged to fight the Gladman plans, an action group is being formed and hundreds of people have signed village and online petitions against 'speculative development' in Audlem.

At Monday night's Parish Council meeting, chairman Phillip repeated the parish pledge to "rigorously oppose any speculative proposal of an opportunistic nature."

The council has asked for support from local MPs and written to the Co-operative Bank to question the ethical grounds for funding many of Gladman's speculative housing projects.

Eddisbury MP Stephen O'Brien has also called for a moratorium on housing developments until a five-year housing supply plan have been established and settled by Cheshire East Council.

He said in a letter to parish councillors: "I am keenly aware and very alive to the threat to the amenity and capacity of Audlem as a vibrant community to withstand being assailed by the numbers of new homes being applied for or potentially in prospect."

Opponents claim Gladman Developments are exploiting a loophole in the law that has resulted from Cheshire East Council's failure to provide a definitive Local Plan for rural areas, following its creation from the merger of Macclesfield, Congleton and Crewe and Nantwich borough councils in 2009.

Cheshire East councillor Rachel Bailey, who attended last night's Parish Council meeting as an observer, explained that the problem was inherited when the unitary authority took over from former borough councils and development plans for rural communities had not been put in place.

"Many newly formed unitary authorities have this problem," she said.

But parish councillor Dave Siddorns was unimpressed. "If Cheshire East had done it's Local Plan for outlying rural areas we would not be in the position we are in now," he claimed.

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