Full text:
Dear Strategic Planning Team,
Please treat this email as my formal response to the Cheshire East Local Plan scoping consultation. Please acknowledge it and provide a consultation reference number.
I am responding as an individual resident with a direct interest in Stapeley and District and the wider Nantwich area.
I understand that the land displayed on the call-for-sites map consists only of submitted sites. They are not allocations, planning applications or approved developments, and detailed representations about individual sites will take place later.
However, the concentration of submitted land around Stapeley raises an important strategic question which should be addressed before sites are shortlisted.
My analysis of the Council’s public map, using the official parish boundary, indicates that Stapeley and District covers approximately 668 hectares. Approximately 11% of the parish appears to have been submitted for housing, rising to approximately 12.5–13% when employment and mixed-use development are included.
These are map-derived estimates rather than official Council statistics. Nevertheless, the estimated housing proportion is around two-and-a-half times the Cheshire East borough-wide land rate and places Stapeley approximately within the highest sixth of parish areas.
I therefore request that Cheshire East:
1. Publish a verified parish-by-parish table showing the area and percentage of land submitted for each development use. This would allow residents to understand the proposed geographic distribution of growth.
2. Undertake a Stapeley and Nantwich South cumulative-development assessment. This should consider completed, permitted, allocated and submitted developments together, rather than assessing each site in isolation.
3. Assess infrastructure capacity before identifying preferred sites. This should include road capacity and safety, schools, GP and dental services, public transport, sewerage, surface-water drainage, flood risk, utilities and active-travel routes.
4. Require an infrastructure delivery plan for every substantial allocation, identifying the necessary improvements, responsible delivery bodies, funding, delivery dates and occupation triggers.
5. Publish the complete site-scoring method and assessment for every site. This should cover highways, drainage and flooding, infrastructure, agricultural land, landscape, biodiversity, heritage, climate effects, public rights of way, accessibility and cumulative impact.
6. Explain how the distribution of development relates to each settlement’s role, infrastructure capacity and previous contribution to housing growth. Where a parish is expected to accommodate a materially above-average proportion, the Council should publish its justification.
7. Demonstrate that brownfield land, empty or underused premises and regeneration opportunities have been properly assessed before greenfield land is selected.
8. Protect the strategic green gap, settlement separation and the individual identities of Nantwich, Stapeley, Shavington and Crewe.
9. Base the housing mix on evidenced local need, including social-rented and genuinely affordable housing, smaller homes, accessible housing and bungalows—not simply total housing numbers.
The present publicity also appears inadequate for a consultation of this importance. I request:
• a local drop-in event for Stapeley and the Nantwich area;
• direct notification of households near any site that progresses;
• parish-level maps and information written in plain English;
• regular promotion through Council social-media channels and local organisations;
• publication of participation figures by locality, so gaps in engagement can be identified; and
• consideration of a short extension because the consultation has received limited publicity and is taking place over the summer holiday period.
Please confirm that these matters will inform the Land Availability Assessment methodology, settlement strategy and infrastructure evidence. I would also like the eventual consultation report to explain how these requests have been considered.
Yours faithfully,
Richard Derricutt
