Developers in the driving seat

As dust settles on the rejection of Cheshire East's housing strategy it may be worth considering the implications of the latest setback.

The latest decision by Secretary of State Eric Pickles effectively gives the green light to developers to press ahead with their plans for large housing estates in open countryside across Cheshire East.

Because Cheshire East Council no longer has a credible housing supply strategy in its emerging Local Plan, speculative developers like Gladman are firmly in the driving seat.

They are now effectively in charge of house building in Cheshire East, it is they who will meet the government's housing supply targets and it is they who will decide where those houses get built.

And it's not just Audlem that will feel the impact. Nearby Nantwich faces the near nightmare scenario of up to 4,000 new houses going up within a two mile radius of the town centre.

Developers are pressing hard for permission to build a 1,100 home 'Nantwich South' village in Stapeley and appeal decisions are pending on plans for 189 homes off Audlem Road and another 150 at Stapeley Water Gardens.

Eric Pickles appears determined to get new homes built over the next five years whatever the local objections. Even true-blue Cheshire East with its six Conservative MPs and a Conservative-dominated council cannot stop the juggernaut .

The options for Cheshire East are limited. It could attempt a legal challenge but that would be a very expensive route .

As Cllr Jones has already admitted: "We won't waste council taxpayers' money if we don't think we can win."

Cheshire East will probably have to go back to the drawing board to redraw an emerging Local Plan that is already hopelessly late.

Meanwhile villages like Audlem are ripe for more speculative housing schemes before Cheshire East can finally get the Local Plan finally signed off.

MP Stephen O'Brien and council leader Michael Jones are rumoured to be planning public meetings but it's hard to see how these can be more than a damage limitation exercise given the current state of affairs.

The only winners in the battle so far are the speculative developers and their landowner partners. We can only await Cheshire East's next move with interest.

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