A few thoughts on planning

Now that the inevitable has happened and Gladman has been granted permission to build upto 120 homes at Little Heath, a few thoughts on the process that we have all followed with so much interest over the past year or so.

The Appeal hearings took place in May last year and lasted seven very long days, a period when your reporter enjoyed himself gently teasing the participants, notably the two lead lawyers and the gang of Gladman expert witnesses.

Many of the latter were employees of the very company they were so clearly supporting with their so-called expert evidence yet their obvious bias seems not to have deterred the Inspector, Mrs Mahoney, whose decision was published on Wednesday.

At the time, we excluded any comment about the Inspector herself as, despite much temptation, there was no point rubbing her up the wrong way. It is a policy we will maintain except to make one point.

Eight months!

Why, oh why, has such a piece of work as her decision taken eight months to publish? Having read it through, it is the sort of thing that any capable person could have knocked off in a couple of weeks given that most of the evidence at the Inquiry was available for copying and pasting.

When a local resident asked the Planning Inspectorate a month or so ago why the decision was taking so long to appear, he was told that the Inspector had been away on extended leave!

Admittedly, the disputes of Cheshire East's 5-year housing supply figures were mentioned also but the very fact the Inspectorate put forward Mrs Mahoney's extended leave publicly as justification for the lengthy delay does cause concern considering how important her decision was to so many in the local community.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of her decision is that it is no surprise, which speaks volumes for the planning system the nation lives under. Given all the other Appeal decisions, Mrs Mahoney wasn't likely to take a different line.

AudlemOnline has commented previously on the way the Inspectorate seems to have taken over from local democratically elected councils in making key planning decisions. This latest decision confirms that is this case.

Local Plan

Mrs Mahoney's decision makes it clear that the absence of an agreed Local Plan and Housing Supply figure was crucial. She wrote: "Whilst a lack of a five year land supply of deliverable housing land does not provide an automatic 'green light' to planning permission, a balance must be struck. The deficiency in land supply will carry substantial weight in that balancing exercise."

That Cheshire East's planners and leaders have clearly failed their residents has been clear for many months and the planners' abject surrender to determined developers was all too clear last month at the Heathfield Road hearing when the planners were waving a very large white flag of surrender for all to see.

What is all too clear is that the merits or otherwise of an individual site now counts for little. It is the 5-year housing supply that pretty well automatically switches on the green light that Mrs Mahoney refers to.

Compensation?

What your correspondent cannot find anywhere in the decision is any reference to Section 106 payments. These are normally applied as a form of tax on developers and Cheshire East was seeking hefty payments from Gladman to pay for educational and medical costs arising from approval of this development.

There was lengthy discussion of these issues at the hearing as Gladman resisted any payments but in the decision, we can little sign of Section 106. This, we understand, comes later with the detailed planning discussions that follows now the outline planning has been approved. It will be important that the village's 'wish list' is considered very carefully and pushed hard and consistently through Cheshire East's planners.

That way, Audlem may get support for many of the good things that go on as well as much needed support for education and health services.

The decision to build at Little Heath has been made. It was expected even though your correspondent's judgement last May was that Cheshire East's legal team shifted the case at the Inquiry from an 80:20 chance of Gladman winning to 50:50.

Unfortunately, the Inspectorate's rejection of Cheshire East's housing supply figures shifted the chances to 99:1.

Reasons to be Cheerful

Despite one's despair at the way planning decisions are made, it may be timely to look for positives as it's exceedingly doubtful that anything, other than the next housing crash, will prevent these new homes being built – and possibly sold.

As Chatbox contributors were saying yesterday, it's time to be positive:

• Audlem's shops, pubs and cafes might benefit, as long as the residents of the 175 new homes in the pipeline actually use them – we thought it was 150 homes but the figure, we are told, is now 175.
• The school should see its pupil numbers increase and there is some capacity that should be filled.
• Medical facilities, which are at stretching point locally, might attract some additional funding although that will require, we guess, all those concerned making the point strongly to the relevant authorities.
• There may be some so-called affordable homes coming on the market although it will be interesting to see if both Gladman and Hockenhull keep to the proportions of affordable homes stated in their outline planning applications.
• The additional local taxes (precept) will help pay for the costs of taking on the playing field, car park etc that many in the village want transferred from Cheshire East to local management.
• Local clubs, societies etc may receive a boost in membership if and when the new houses are bought and occupied.

After all, with the TV coverage Audlem has attracted in the past month, there's many that will be very keen to live here. We might even get some more good singers!

Protection for some

Finally, as an aside, it does seem as if some local residents are to receive a much higher level of protection than any of the humans affected adversely by this development. Mrs Mahoney's conditions include:

"No development shall take place until a detailed survey (carried out by a suitably qualified person) to check for nesting birds prior to undertaking any works between 1st March and 31st August in any year has been carried out and submitted to the local planning authority. Where nests are found a 4m exclusion zone shall be left around the nest until breeding is complete."

So at least one part of the local community will not be inconvenienced! Curiously, these are the one part that can fly all too easily to a new site that suits them perfectly.

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