Gladman planning process descends to farce

In a report in this week's Chronicle, Cllr Don Stockton, Cheshire East Cabinet member in charge of housing, planning, economic development and regeneration defended the planning department's actions in handling the Gladman plan to build 120 dwellings at Little Heath, adding that the "sheer weight of objections" had delayed the process.

Last week Cheshire East delayed hearing Gladman's application by a month thus giving the developer the excuse to go straight to appeal to the Secretary of State because their application had not been considered within the 13-weeks allowed.

Cllr Stockton said: "The developer has gained no material advantage by appealing for non-determination. The application will be heard at October's strategic planning board in the normal way.

"The only difference is that, instead of making a final decision on the application, the committee will make a decision indicating what decision they would have made had they been able to.

"If that decision is one of approval, it would not be unreasonable to expect Gladman to withdraw their appeal. If the decision is for refusal, the reasons given for refusing the application will form the basis of the Council's case at the appeal.

"The reason this application was put back to October's meeting is due to vast public representations and comments on this application. We were also informed that some people have had trouble submitting comments electronically via our website.

"With this in mind, we delayed this application being heard until October to ensure we received, reviewed and recorded all the public's comments properly.

"While the council is disappointed Gladman Developments has, at the first opportunity, lodged an appeal on non-determination grounds, I can assure residents the strategic planning board will still consider the application, in advance of that appeal being heard. There is therefore still an opportunity for the public to voice their views on the application."

AudlemOnline Comment

Many reading this, like the web team, will wonder if Lewis Carroll is still writing today. If so, it would be Cheshire East rather than the Cheshire Cat that would have a starring role in Wonderland.

Stricken with guilt, the webteam now realise that we, and indeed Audlem Parish Council, may be to blame for the whole fiasco because we encouraged residents to exercise their democratic rights to submit comments on the Gladman plan to build up to 120 dwellings at Little Heath.

Councillor Stockton's comments are even more amazing given that only two local comments appeared after the deadline which, in any case, was weeks before the planning application was due to be heard yesterday by the Strategic Planning Board.

Also, it's surprising that technical issues with Cheshire East's website are cited as another reason for postponing the hearing and pushing it beyond the 13-week limit. Despite much evidence to the contrary, Cheshire East has previously denied there were problems submitting comments online.

Now we are in the position of the committee making "a decision indicating what decision they would have made had they been able to."

Several months ago, in a comment piece on Audlem Online, we asked whether Cheshire East could cope with these planning applications. We said then that the jury was out. It now seems that the verdict is very clear – the people of Audlem have been let down very badly.

We can only hope that Cheshire East is preparing the case that will go before a planning inspector appointed by the Secretary of State very carefully and that they will have top quality lawyers representing them. There is, it seems, an awful lot of ground to make up.

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