Planning permission for a residential development on Green Belt land on the western fringe of Wilmslow has been refused.
Cheshire East's Northern Planning Committee voted unanimously on Wednesday, 4th February, to refuse Jones Homes' outline application to build 26 houses on a site of approximately one hectare off Rotherwood Road.
There have been no previous planning applications in respect to this site which, as part of a wider piece of land, is classed as making a significant contribution to the Green Belt. It is currently a vacant field and the last use of the site is thought to have been for grazing land.
Cllr Gary Barton, who attended and spoke at the Northern Planning Committee meeting yesterday, said "I am very pleased that Cheshire East's Northern Planning Committee has unanimously voted to refuse the outline application to build 26 houses on land off Rotherwood Road. Both the planning case officer and the committee recognised that this would have been inappropriate development in the green belt and that access to the site is unsuitable for such a development.
"Such speculative applications are unwelcome, especially when they are cynically lodged immediately before the Christmas period in the hope that local people's attention will be elsewhere. The number of objections lodged shows the understandable strength of feeling towards protecting our local green belt, especially in the area around Lindow Moss/Saltersley Common.
"The applicant does have the right to appeal Cheshire East's decision; however, their chances of success seem low. Recent decisions by the Secretary of State have made it clear that this kind of speculative green belt application is inappropriate whilst the Local Plan process is ongoing. We cannot expect to block all local development and the needs of younger and future generations have to to be met. However, this does not mean that the views of those of us who live locally should be ignored, and local voices must have a strong say in where development can and can't happen."
The outline planning application can be viewed on the Cheshire East Council website by searching for planning reference 14/3884M.
Comments
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Lets hope that the other current application on the peat bog gets similar treatment.
We must not dismiss the right for P E Jones to go to appeal and that he could win as Cheshire East does not have a Local Plan or a 5 year supply of housing. Despite what the Secretary of State is saying, Cheshire East has lost appeal after appeal in recent times, so much so, that in the south of the county there is a surplus of housing provision and developers are not building. Why build what you can’t sell? They have picked up on the Government Inspector in his criticism of the Local Plan an uneven distribution of proposed housing that implies more sites should be put forward in areas around Macclesfield, Wilmslow, Handforth and Poynton. Thus Residents of Wilmslow (RoW) remain watchful and ready to act for local people as they have done in support of those in Rotherwood Road.
On unanimous Councillor support for protecting Rotherwood, what we do know is that, should this site, or any other Green Belt land around Wilmslow be put into a revised Local Plan, local councillors will likely vote with Conservative colleagues as they did the first time round. Thus, we have today bulldozers carving up land at Adlington Road (PE Jones 204 houses), planned development of the Green Belt at Royal London and lands south of Prestbury Road, and at Upcast Lane being taken out of the Green Belt for future development.
We need to remember the recent history that is the Local Plan and how overwhelming local opposition to the sites selected for development was ignored and think very carefully about how we cast our votes this coming May both at national and local levels.
CEC are loosing appeals in the South of the borough because most of the developments are "Greenfield". NOT Greenbelt. There is a big difference.
Where land has never been developed - or has previously been developed and demolished and a site has returned to nature - that is a greenfield site.
Green belt is a legal restriction on development in defined areas around major cities in an attempt to prevent urban sprawl - i.e. towns merging into each other. It's usually only possible to develop in very limited circumstances here. A previously developed plot of land that falls inside the green belt area is still a brownfield site.
But green belt usually only extends a few miles out of the main cities and larger towns - so, for instance, there is no green belt at all in the south-west of Cheshire East borough. Manchester's green belt only goes out about as far as Jodrell Bank - and Stoke's green belt only goes out as far as Congleton/Alsager.
A rapidly ageing &swelling population will require a massive shift in policy.
After extraction ceases all buildings, plant and machinery shall be removed, the excavations shall be filled with suitable materials and the land covered in topsoil and left in a condition suitable for agriculture.
This was in the interest of visual amenity and in order to prevent the land from becoming derelict, particularly because the land is within the North Cheshire Green Belt.
No mention of brownfield is in the document in my possession and to the best of my knowledge is still in force.
The current "Green Belt Boundaries" in Cheshire East are defined by the Local Plans of the three former borough councils that merged in 2008 to form Cheshire East Council. The Green belt boundary in the former Macclesfield Borough wards is defined in the 2004 Macclesfield Local Plan which expired in December 2011, But as Cheshire East doesn't yet have a replacement Local Plan in place, developers are now trying to say that the 2004 plan is out of date and that Greenbelt land should not be excluded from development. Hence Speculative development applications for development in Greenbelt Areas such as "Welton Oaks" and now "Rotherwood". There is also an ongoing appeal by a developer for an application that was refused permission in the Pigginshaw Lane area (Near the Texaco Garage) of Altrincham Road.
The Greenbelt boundaries are under attack from both Developers and Cheshire East Council!!!
Government should build garden cities not garden villages and not mess around with a few hundred houses here or there in and around Wilmslow. It doesn't get us anywhere near the 20,000 run rate per month needed according to those in the know.
The failed local plan reflects a process that is repeatedly discredited across the nation and is not fit for purpose. If you keep doing what you have always done then you will make he same mistakes again Simply adding urban sprawl for commuters, that surrounds a town centre with less and less retail relevance is hopeless. It's plain wrong.
Ryan is quite correct.