A councillor has blasted a decision to allow 21 new homes in a Nantwich village after public objections were “lost” by Cheshire East Council.
The plans for 21 homes on Cheerbrook Road, Willaston, by Wainhomes (North West) were approved by the Strategic Planning Board.
But Willaston and Rope Ward Cllr Brian Silvester (pictured) believes the application should have been pulled because recommendations on it were made by officers before the closure of the consultation period.
Emails forwarded to Nantwichnews indicate that online objections lodged by residents in the village “went missing”.
Cllr Silvester said: “Some of my constituents objected online on the Cheshire East Council website to the proposal They were later told the objections had been lost and they needed to resubmit them by November 4.
“The recommendation to approve the application came out on October 29 – almost a week before the consultation period ended.
“It is obvious representations received after October 29 have not been taken into account before the recommendation was made.
“It makes an absolute mockery of the consultation process and it is undemocratic because the views of local people clearly have not been taken into account.”
More than 20 householders wrote in to object as well as Willaston Parish Council.
They raised concerns on development of Green Gap land, the impact on traffic in the village, and problems with infrastructure such as drainage, pressures on school and GP places.
But these were dismissed by officers and the Strategic Planning Board passed the proposals.
A spokesman for Cheshire East Council said the “number” of objections is not taken into consideration.
“Instead, it is the points raised that are important,” the spokesman added.
“Officers treat each application on its own merits and base recommendations on planning reasons only. Although ‘late’ representations may be received it is unlikely they will raise new issues.
“If they do, officers can amend their recommendation to committee accordingly either in the ‘late update report’, which goes out 48 hours before the meeting, or verbally at the meeting.
“It should be remembered this case is a resubmission and was previously heard in November. It is therefore not a new application where the issues have not been heard previously.
“The agenda has to be published a week before the meeting. On occasions such as this, comments will be received right up until the meeting and can be included in the late update report or be read out to the planning committee.
“This ensures all comments are heard and taken into account by the committee who are the ultimate decision makers in this application.
“We have apologised for the unforeseen fault which led to residents having to resubmit comments. We have now made every reasonable effort to allow residents to resubmit their comments right up until the date of the meeting.”
Cllr Silvester believes the failure by Cheshire East to demonstrate a five-year supply of housing land has opened the floodgates to developers.
“There are good planning reasons to refuse the Cheerbrook Road application, even though there is not a 5-year housing supply and a Adopted Local Plan in place,” he added.
“I strongly felt that the council should be refusing applications like this that are detrimental to the open countryside, impinge on the green gaps between our towns and are unsustainable.”
The statement that these homes are detrimental to the countryside is vague, unproven or demonstrated anywhere where here within your article. Furthermore, such a sweeping statement throws an entire professional institutes such as IEEM into complete disrepute. If you are able to demonstrate that the “countryside” ( a vague and unspecific term relating to nothing more than a fictionally generated ideal) is under threat, then why were adequate environmental surveys not conducted in accordance with Natural England Guidelines?
This would have stopped the development if as you suggest the integraty of local habitats or their associated ecosystems were under threat; whilst also providing mitigation measures to at least provide some fringe benefits of the development for associated habitats and species.