Following publication of the Planning Inspector's Interim Views, which outlined "serious shortcomings" and "significant flaws" that need to be addressed before the Local Plan examination can continue, Councillor David Brown has decided to step down from overseeing the plan.
Cheshire East is now creating a Task Force to drive and coordinate the work required to address the Inspector's concerns and strengthen the Local Plan.
Council Leader Michael Jones said: "Councillor Peter Raynes will now lead this Task Force to expedite the process and reduce to as short as possible any delay to the Local Plan being examined and adopted.
"Peter will be ably assisted by former Cabinet member Councillor Jamie Macrae, who has a fantastic background within planning and economic development. We will also continue to listen to residents and involve external partners.
"It is important for everybody to be reassured that we have listened and will continue to listen to people to make sure we get the Local Plan right as soon as possible."
Cheshire East received a report last week from the Planning Inspector providing his interim views on the soundness and legal compliance of the Council's Local Plan.
Whilst the Inspector is of the opinion that the Council has met the minimum legal requirements of the Duty to Co-operate, he criticised the economic strategy for being "unduly pessimistic".
He also expressed concern that the proposed level of housing is inadequate to meet future need and the process and evidence relating to the proposed Green Belt amendments is flawed.
Meanwhile UKIP Cheshire East Councillors Brian Silvester and Andy Barratt have revealed that Cheshire East Council has spent £3,765,635 on the Local Plan since 2010.
Brian Silvester said "The local plan was supported by Conservative and Labour Councillors when it was adopted by the Council. It has taken over 5 years to have a plan but now it has been comprehensively rubbished by the Plannning Inspector. It is not a rewrite that is required, it will virtually mean starting again.
"This is incompetence on a massive scale and all those Councillors who supported the Local Plan should be thrown out next May to allow for a fresh start. Local residents will be appalled that CEC have spent 5 years and £3.7m of Council Taxpayers money on a Local Plan that is totally inadequate and left our precious green open spaces to the mercy of the developers."
The Council is minded to pause the examination to allow further work to be undertaken to address the Inspector's concerns, which is likely to be completed within six months.
Councillor Peter Raynes, who is Cabinet member in charge of finance, said: "As a long-term resident of Cheshire East, I have a passion to maintain the precious landscape of our beautiful Borough. But, at the same time, this Council recognises the need to produce a Local Plan that meets the needs of the future.
"I cannot think of a more important task to be involved in."
Councillor David Brown, Deputy Leader of Cheshire East Council and Cabinet member in charge of strategic outcomes, said: "In order to ensure the best chance for the Cheshire East Local Plan to succeed, I have decided to take a backward step from overseeing the Local Plan to allow a fresh pair of eyes and perspective to be brought to bear.
"I believe this is the best solution for the way forward as I have spent many hours and met many residents during the production of the plan.
"The Local Plan has been a massive undertaking: the Council has received more than 40,000 responses from residents and organisations, which were collated, assessed and fed into the submission version of the Local Plan Strategy. The strategy has also undergone nine rounds of public consultation since 2010.
"Since the Local Plan was approved by the Council, on February 28, 2014, the Government has come out with a new assessment methodology – the National Planning Policy Guidance – on March 6 this year, and therefore new housing calculations and employment figures will have to be calculated.
"Our economic growth and projected jobs creation has been outstanding – even beyond our expectations, with the unemployment rate down to 1.2 per cent in the Borough and just 0.9 per cent in Congleton for example – so we now have to review our housing numbers.
"Now it is time for others to assess the Planning Inspector's comments in total – to make sure we can address all the issues that have been raised."
Comments
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http://bit.ly/1F3ZOU2
The Plan was not submitted for inspection until well after 6th March when the National Policy Guidelines were published and could still have been changed before submission. The main clarification contained in these was that lack of housing supply would not normally count as exceptional circumstances to justify building in the greenbelt. The guidelines did not however materially change the basis for calculating housing and employment figures and it is therefore wrong to lay the blame for the Plan's failure on the 6th March guidelines.
Cllr Brown is the unfortunate fall guy. It has been evident for a long time that blame would be laid on him if the Plan failed, where in truth it is more senior figures who should resign or be sacked. People will be asking next May, are the present Council members fit for purpose?
Cllr Brown has wrecked any chance of Cheshire East having a plan before the May 2015 elections and wrecked balanced, sustainable, safe and welcome development in Wilmslow.
He has also wrecked the chances of conservative councillors being re elected.
The culprits will slowly but surely disappear. I wonder when the Chief Planning Officer follows? What a mess voters!
Now in situ at Westfield, Sandbach!
What planet are Cllr Brown and Cllr Jones on? Or more to the point, do they honestly believe the good folk of Cheshire East have just touched down in their domain from outer space?
As par for the CE course, everyone is to blame for the fiasco that is the Local Plan. Another costly & useless exercise, this one to be added to the sorry tale of other mismanagement fiascos, like Lyme Green to name just one!
Take the NPPF new assessment methodology, published by the DCLG on the 6th March. On the 3rd April, at a meeting at Westfield, with Cllr Brown, I asked if in view of the new NPPF methodology, he would sanction a rethink of the LP to take account of the DCLG's new policy. This was four (4) weeks after the 6th March announcement. I clearly remember Cllr Brown, placing his hands firmly on the LP document on the desk before him, saying "No", his/their plan will stand and go forward as it is with no alterations whatsoever.
Residents of Wilmslow have repeatedly told both Cllrs Jones & Brown, for well over 18 months, that their plan as derived was going to end in only one way - disaster. Disaster for all the residents of the Borough and at enormous cost to its tax payers.
In addition, they whipped their Conservative colleagues through the debate on approving this plan at a Special Council Meeting on the 28th February. The Conservative councillors responded by voting like unthinking zombies to NOT take the Green Belt sites out of the LP, in other words they voted for the destruction of the Green Belt.
Before this stage, 9 rounds of so called "public consultations" ensued; all public opposition to CEs LP sites, with overwhelming percentages of participants votes, were more or less ignored.
A very recent result of this arrogance and total disregard for Wilmslow's voters participation and deeply expressed opposition to loss of the protective Green Belt, was RoWs Wilmslow TC by-election win last week against a prominent CE councillor. This vote will have far reaching repercussions, well beyond Wilmslow TC.
Cllrs Jones, Brown, other Conservative councillors and indeed our M.P. should take note; the writing is writ large on the election booth wall!
What CE so plainly needs, at borough, town & parish levels, are a host of independent councillors who will listen and act according to their voters wishes, not act in carrying through the desires of uncaring, non-listening political parties, hell bent on their own "legacies".
Pravda/Westfield editor's correction, "the emperor wasn't wearing any clothes"
Surely the competence of officials at CEC to manage major projects has to be questioned. Where are the fiscal, business and project management skills? If any member of the public, working in any normal PLC, had failed so disastrously, they would have been fired on the spot and shareholders demanding answers from the board.
My grave concern though is that CEC have been creating private companies, yes, local authority owned trading companies, sheltered under the Tekal ruling.
CEC transfer council staff under TUPE regs. to these newly formed companies and start to operate as a private company supplying services back to the council. If these company fail, the mess created simply falls back onto the rate payer which could quite easily include financial liability. The staff employed, with no penalty, just revert back to being Council employees.
Councils including Chelsea, Barnet and Essex have all suffered from Council owned companies failing, both operationally and financially, to the cost of the local ratepayer. How can we trust CEC to manage companies when they can't even mange what they are supposed to do - I wait for baited breath for the first collapse of a financially strained CEC owned company.
If they can't manage what they are supposed to do - how can they manage a private company when most of them have little or zero experience in such an environment!
The performance of CEC in these matters, it's reputation in tatters, must surely have an impact on voting patterns throughout the County come election time.
BeWilderwood £5M.
Alderley Science Park £6M.
Local Plan £3.7M+
There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted..... but now it would appear now, they get a lot of publicity and we have to keep coughing up for their incompetence instead.
I can't fathom how "our" Council has moved from the position of a "provider of essential services to the Council Tax-Payers" to being some sort of out of control, risk-taking, venture-capital outfit.
Oh boy, and is it not an enormous bottomless hole they keep on trying to fill with our money!
Perhaps we can persuade the majority party in the council to start burying some of its very own "top-dog" diggers, before they bury all us in it.
http://bit.ly/1vzL6mC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqxqGH2fG1o
From which I conclude that "the Government" moved the goal-posts; he does not take full responsibility- as there was a large team involved (even though he was the boss) and if you concentrate on what he says, very briefly, about 5 minutes in, Wilmslow and the surrounding areas will now be under even more loss of Green Belt pressure.