Round One of Little Heath Inquiry

Yesterday saw the opening round of a likely six to determine if up to 120 dwellings should be built at Little Heath in what would be the largest single housing development in Audlem's history.

In the red corner we had John Barrett, counsel for Gladman Developments Ltd, the appellant, and in the blue corner Anthony Crean QC on behalf of Cheshire East Council.

Presiding over the Inquiry, held at Crewe Alexandra's stadium (inside, under cover, we should clarify) was the government appointed inspector, Frances Mahoney, a Chartered Town Planner.

The programme over the coming days was mapped out, scheduling the Audlem Parish Council representative, Geoff Seddon, to make his statement (and possibly face rigorous cross-examination) on Tuesday.

The two barristers had a spirited legal argument about which expert witnesses nominated by Gladman's side should be heard or not – at times, the arguments were a little like dancing on the head of a pin, albeit the dancing was elegant and might well have scored highly on Strictly.

That discussion, nominally about whether issues were in dispute or not between the two sides, saw ninety minutes come and go, which eventually reached a conclusion which fortunately satisfied both parties.

It seems that Gladman's experts on Agricultural Land Supply; Hedgerows; Landscape; Affordable Housing; the Sustainabilty of Audlem and Housing Need, the very experts Cheshire East thought we could do without, will be assembled this coming Tuesday for the fourth day of the inquiry. Those whose presence was not challenged, dealing with Housing Land Supply and Planning Policy and Balance, will also presumably be there.

That established, the real work began – the examination of Cheshire East's head of planning, Adrian Fisher. The subject: the council's 5-year housing supply which, it is already clear, is likely to be the crux of this case, as it has in many other recent appeals.

Today's questioning was by Cheshire East's own counsel, and forensically, minutely, methodically and arithmetically the case was built with case law, Planning Policy Guidance, Office of National Statistics' projections, old local plans and new local plans to determine the one main issue in contention, namely whether the Council can demonstrate a five year supply of deliverable housing land to the satisfaction of the inspector.

This took all of a fascinating afternoon as tables designed to simplify both ours and the inspector's understanding were examined as well as Mr Fisher's Summary Proof of Evidence and Rebuttal Appendices, all of which attracted detailed yet gentle examination.

Indeed, so convincing were Cheshire East's figures, so conservative their assumptions about the pace of future building, any reservations your correspondent, and hopefully the inspector, may have ever harboured about the robustness of Cheshire East's emerging Local Plan, simply melted away.

There is hope, it seems, on what we heard yesterday afternoon, that the carefully compiled views of planning professionals may yet prevail over the wishes of a speculative developer and his commissioned experts who, it was argued, had been somewhat partial in their submissions.

Tomorrow we may have to adopt a contrary view as Adrian Fisher is subjected to an estimated five and half hours of cross-examination by Gladman's counsel, a prospect he is doubtless looking forward to as much as your correspondent is.

If you want to learn more about housing supply and need, and much else about the planning process, do come along this morning for what should be a fascinating day. It starts at 9.30am in the Alexandra Suite and should last until about 5.00pm.

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