Cheshire East Council is understandably pleased with the three very recent decisions from central Government that have rejected housing schemes on green-field sites in the Borough. These come after the raft of 2014 decisions where Permissions were granted for just this type of proposal.
The constant across the decisions - both rejections and
approvals – is that the Borough hasn't been able to prove
that it has the required five years supply of housing land.
So why the variation in outcome? Isn't just the case that
everyone agrees that Britain needs more houses, and where a Council
can't show it has enough land the default answer to new
proposals is 'yes'? Well, the answer to that is obviously
'no'.
Those in the development industry might say 'there just
aren't any rules' – there's reams of planning
policy, both national (even after the slim down of national
guidance a couple of years ago) and local (including that which is
now a good number of years old) – but perhaps this
doesn't provide for the consistency that could reasonably be
expected by all sides.
The one rule we all know and understand is Green Belt – but
that doesn't apply to many of the sites around the very towns
where developers are keen to build.
The step down from Green Belt is 'Green Gap' and on recent
form the Minister thinks that this land should be protected (at
least in Cheshire East until its new Local Plan is more
advanced).
In the meantime, 'Countryside' essentially covers the
other fields: and the test here often (but not always) comes down
to where development is 'sustainable': a phrase that can
mean different things to different people, hence the possible
perception of 'no rules' in these locations.
In the past we've had formal 'sustainability'
checklists, with quantified measures of numbers of schools, bus
stops, pubs and the like. While such an approach had its
detractors, at least it provided some measureable benchmarks.
Perhaps a return to such an approach would bring some rules to
guide everyone?
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