Mystery meeting of planning board

AudlemOnline has been alerted to an unusual meeting of Cheshire East Council's Strategic Planning Board later today.

Notice of the meeting appeared on the council's website for the first time yesterday, without any published agenda.

The council website said of the meeting in Sandbach that "the agenda will be displayed in the week before the meeting" despite the fact that no agenda had been published within 24 hours of the meeting being held.

Following a request from AudlemOnline about the anomaly, the website was updated with a notice that press and public are excluded on the grounds of likely disclosure of 'exempt information'.

Today's agenda now reads that the matters to be considered in secret are "To receive an update with regard to ongoing Planning Appeals".

The council's Strategic Planning Board went into a 'public and press excluded' session last week to discuss the financial implications of Cheshire East continuing to pursue a number of planning appeals.

An 'urgent item' on that agenda was a 12-page document entitled "Five Year Housing Land Supply and Planning Appeals" and a warning that the "Council needs to act quickly to avoid abortive work and mitigate the risk of awards of costs."

This latest meeting of the Strategic Planning Board will increase speculation about Cheshire East's resolve to fight the planning appeal brought by Gladman Developments to build up to 120 homes at Little Heath.

The recent government rejection of Cheshire East's housing land supply figures now leaves the council vulnerable when fighting appeals against speculative housing developments in the countryside.

Councillors at last week's Strategic Planning Board were addressed by its Head of Planning and Place Shaping regarding the recent Planning Inspector's decisions on a number of appeals.

The Board then approved schemes for 80 homes at Holmes Chapel, 175 dwellings at Wilmslow, 21 homes at Willaston, 44 houses at Haslington and 91 dwellings at Bollington.

Audlem parish councillors were told last month that Cheshire East is currently fighting 34 appeals on major housing schemes.

Cheshire East's Development and Building Control Manager, Stephen Irvine, described the current spate of planning applications in Cheshire East as an "opportunistic feeding frenzy" as developers try to cash in on the twin opportunity of a Government presumption in favour of development in the countryside and the delay in signing off the emerging Local Plan.

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