Planners pledge to fight 'feeding frenzy'

Planners have pledged to fight Audlem planning appeals all the way despite Cheshire East being 'under siege' from developers.

Top planning officials Stephen Irvine and Ben Haywood assured Audlem Parish Council the authority was committed to opposing bids by speculative developers to build estates in open countryside.

Cheshire's Development and Building Control Manager, Stephen Irvine, described the current spate of planning applications in Cheshire East as an "opportunistic feeding frenzy".

He claimed the Cheshire East planning department has been overwhelmed with planning applications and appeal hearings as developers bid to cash in on the twin opportunity of a Government presumption in favour of development and the delay in signing off the emerging Local Plan.

Principal Planning Officer, Ben Haywood, blamed the "unprecedented number of major planning applications" for the failure to determine the Gladman application within the statutory 13 weeks.

But he claimed that plans that are refused will inevitably end up as appeals and that Gladman got in as quickly as possible in order to book its place in the queue.

Cheshire East is currently fighting 34 appeals on major planning applications and the costs, at upwards of £20,000 for each appeal, are mounting up.

But Mr Haywood assured Audlem Parish Councillors that Cheshire East was not counting the cost and is employing a senior experienced barrister and some very expert witnesses to contest all the appeals.

Cheshire East's Strategic Planning Board meets today to decide on grounds to contest the Gladman appeal for up to 120 houses at Little Heath and to rule on whether to refuse planning permission for Hockenhull to build up to 36 homes on land off the Mill Lane Bridleway.

This article is from our news archive. As a result pictures or videos originally associated with it may have been removed and some of the content may no longer be accurate or relevant.