Council challenges planning appeal in dispute over five-year housing supply

Cheshire East Council is to challenge a planning appeal by judicial review. It last year rejected an application by developer Rowland Homes to build 96 homes at Elworth Hall Farm, but a planning inspector overturned that last month.

The inspector said Rowland’s plans constituted sustainable development, its benefits outweighed any harm and that Cheshire East could not prove it had the required five-years supply of deliverable housing land.

Council leader Michael Jones said the authority had sought legal advice and was now convinced it had grounds for judicial review of the inspector’s decision.

“This was a very important planning decision, which was produced in a way which left many members of the public concerned,” he said.

“I am pleased to see that we will be asking a judge to review this decision – especially on the issue of our having a five-year supply of housing land.”

He added: “We will do everything we can to defend our greenbelt and green gap spaces – and this is no exception.”

The Royal Town Planning Institute this week criticised the emphasis on the five-year land supply in planning policy.

It said in evidence to the communities and local government select committee's inquiry into the operation of the National Planning Policy Framework that the weight given to the land supply issue was a threat to sustainable development.

RTPI president Cath Ranson said: “The NPPF is a considerable achievement. But we are concerned that in its operation, the focus on one short-term criterion is frustrating the genuinely-held desire by Government for sustainable development.

“An overly narrow focus runs the risk of missing the bigger and more important picture of planning holistically for the longer term.”

Mark Smulian