Coun Janet Clowes

Leader of Cheshire East Conservatives

THE pace of building construction rises with better weather but whatever your views of the 2017 Cheshire East Council Local Plan, there’s no doubt it abruptly halted the rampant, unplanned, speculative development we endured before its implementation.

Sadly, phase two Site Allocations and Development Policies Document (SADPD) that supports smaller and rural areas, including the green belt, is still awaiting approval.

Remember 2019 and the triumphal announcements of the Labour-Independent administration promising to re-write the Local Plan?

They’d reduce housing numbers, save the green belt, re-locate the traveller transit site - everything the electorate wanted to hear. Well three years on and we’re still waiting.

Repeated public consultations, hearings, re-writings of the SADPD, gruelling meetings of the strategic planning board finally resulted in a submission to the inspector last year.

Last summer, prior to leaving office, Councillor Toni Fox (Independent), cabinet member for planning, claimed her greatest achievement was that ‘under the joint Independent/Labour administration, green belt sites that had been allocated for immediate release for development were removed - saving valuable green belt land’.

However the administration failed to explain that green belt sites remain ‘safeguarded land’ for potential development in the next Local Plan (2030 is not so far away), and the traveller transit site has already been approved - in exactly the same place! So what next?

The inspector is not satisfied. Although much of the SADPD is complete, further policy and policies map amendments are needed to make the SADPD ‘sound and legally compliant’.

Another six week public consultation is happening now (April 19 to 5pm on May 31) and can be accessed at council libraries or on the council website.

Completion of the

SADPD is (hopefully) in sight, but will it be all that the LabourIndependent coalition promised?

Not a chance!