Bellway Homes seeks to build 104 houses on land off Waggs Road/Fol Hollow. The application is a revised version of the application that was refused at appeal and judicial review.

Bellway Homes have proposed some changes to a portion of the footpath that runs down Waggs Road and details of the proposal can be seen on the Planning website. The application reference is 17/0195C and comments on the application must be returned by lunchtime (12 noon) on 23rd February 2017.

Reasons for objections to the Bellway Homes application at land off Waggs Road

Objections MUST be made before noon on 23rd February either by using the council’s planning website (click reference link above and then ‘Comment on this application’ link below map) or in writing to be at Development Management, Cheshire East Council. Municipal Buildings, Earle Street, Crewe CW1 9HP by the noon deadline.

1.  The proposed development is outside the settlement zone line and in open countryside and is in conflict with policies in the emerging Cheshire East Local Plan, the saved policies of the Congleton Borough Local Plan and the proposed policies of the emerging Congleton Neighbourhood Plan.  It will mean despoliation of the views and landscape across open countryside from both Congleton and Astbury.

2. The need for this development has to be questioned.  According to figures up to 31st March 2016 provided in the latest version of the Local Plan, Congleton Key Service area has sufficient sites, permissions and completions to supply at least 500 more homes than the housing need requirement of 4,100.  Other permissions from additional sites have been given in the interim.  According to the officer in charge of the Local Plan there is an expectation that Cheshire East will be shown to have achieved its 5-year-housing-land supply by the end of March 2017.

3. The development proposals do not address the highways and road safety issues at the two bottle-neck points, below Marlfields and at the junction of Fol Hollow and the A34, especially  the lack of pavement and clear sight-lines at the latter junction.

4. Although both the developer and CEC Highways  have previously acknowledged that Fol Hollow/Waggs Road is used as a ‘rat run’ by motorists to cross to and from the town centre and other residential districts in West Heath, there has been no assessment of the impact of increased traffic from other developments in that area, including permissions at Padgbury Lane and off the Holmes Chapel Road and the Link Road.  These now all have planning permission and this should be taken into consideration when discussing the traffic implications of this proposal.

5. Flooding at the end of Fol Hollow and on the A34 is well-documented and the proposals do not offer any amelieration of this situation, albeit the site is upstream of an area where the Loach Brook regularly floods.  There are no proposals to improve this in this application.