Cheshire East has revised its Site Allocations and Development Policies Document and is now inviting residents to comment via the Cheshire East portal. The previous document allocated nearly 8 hectares of land to be taken out of Chelford Green Belt for future development needs and also allocated 22 homes to be built on Green Belt land behind Chelford Farm supplies. The 7.8 hectares of land covered a large area to the east of the railway line and down to the Village Hall. This area of land had the potential to be developed with over 300 houses. The Parish Council sent in strong objections to this loss of Green Belt and also to the prospect of more large scale development in Chelford in the future.
The revised plan has reduced the amount of safeguarded land to about 4.8 hectares and this now includes the site behind Chelford Farm Supplies. This allocation of safeguarded land is still large and is considerably more than any of the other local service centres, including Alderley Edge which is a far bigger settlement with a much higher level of services. Safeguarded land is basically land which has the potential to be developed some time in the future. Chelford Neighbourhood Plan specifically states that any future development should be small scale (about 20 houses), so long as it meets the needs of Chelford and there should be no loss of Green Belt land. Clearly the revised plan continues to be out of line with those elements of the Neighbourhood Plan.
We would urge residents to visit the online consultation and make their views known. The Parish Council will, once again, be making comments.
You can see the document and comment here
The consultation closes on Wednesday 23rd December.