Our Readers Write

Open letter to Mr David Rutley MP, and Councillors of Macclesfield regarding Bellway Homes development, Chelford Road

Dear Mr Rutley & Councillors

We are writing to you regarding the land between Whirley Road and Chelford Road, Macclesfield which Bellway Homes have outline permission under planning application 17/4277M, approved permission on reserved matters application 19/3097M, and refused reserved matters application 19/3098M.

Over the last three weeks works have commenced, despite there being outstanding conditions to be satisfied on the reserved matters. Some of the first works to take place were the cutting down of the 450 trees, which made up the Whirley community woodland, planted by children who attend the school and reside in the locality. The next action was that a large section of hedge was removed on Whirley Road; I cannot understand why this hedge was removed, as the plans and permissions show no access to Whirley Road. 

We are writing to you today because I have grave concerns about the planning process on this site, and the developers approach to trees, hedges and the substantial amounts of peat across this field.

Firstly, we’d like to raise my concerns about the removal of hedge on Whirley Road. Throughout the process of removing this site from Greenbelt and placing in the Local Plan, it has been stated quite sensibly that no vehicular access should be allowed from the development on to Whirley Road due to safety. Whirley Road is semi-rural road which runs from Chelford Road, through to Alderley Edge, the road is narrow, and the pavements are extremely narrow and, to be honest quite dangerous especially as vehicle speed down the road. 

By removing the hedge, it appears that Bellway may have applied for temporary access from Whirley Road to construct the development. As you are aware, there is a primary school, and two pre-schools on the road, with parents/carers and children walking up and down Whirley Road between the sites at least twice a day, and also to access the play areas at Jasmine Park and Henbury. The route is also popular with pedestrians, going about their daily business. Another recent concerning issue is that Cheshire East have for some odd reason removed the road from the winter gritting route. 

Mr Rutley, We wonder if you would kindly write to The Transport Secretary & Cheshire East Highways please and express our concerns; there must be no vehicular access to this site. In actual fact condition 5 of the planning decision notice for 17/4277m states “The vehicular access to serve the development hereby permitted shall be via the new junction onto Chelford Road only with no vehicular access to Whirley Road. Reason: In the interests of highway safety.”

Councillors, please can you work as a team, cross party to ensure no access, not even temporary is allowed. 

Application 19/3098M

It appears this application to the north of the site was used as a back door to get even more houses than the number originally approved on the outline application. We understand from Henbury Parish Council that the applicant has lodged an appeal with the Planning Inspectorate. Our concerns with this part of the development are:

1. That this would create over-development. The total number of dwellings for site LPS18 (The north side of Chelford Road) were confirmed as 150 dwellings total in the Local Plan. The original outline permission was for 135 dwellings, application 19/3098M was for 23 dwellings, a parcel to the southeast of the site has outline permission for 30 dwellings, and as yet an unclaimed parcel in the northeast which can take up to 30 dwellings making a total of 217 dwellings, over 50% increase from the Planning Inspectors numbers.

2. To build on this part of the site, the developer would need to remove a significant amount of peat, which it appears nobody, developer, planners, experts etc have any actual idea of just how much peat there is. In fact, when samples were being taking in 2018, the contractor said that there was peat down to a level of five metres, but that was as deep as he could check with his equipment, too much to estimate. Locals say that throughout the planning process, all concerned have done their best to quell any noise regarding the peat removal, which is quite shocking especially for a local authority with a climate emergency.

3. The proposed development would result in a net loss to biodiversity. It has not been demonstrated that the proposal would be able to achieve a biodiversity net gain.

4. There is a significant body of water in the north west corner of the site, referred to as surface puddling during planning meetings, but measures at least 2.2 acres, and up to five feet deep. It appears that dwellings would be sited in this water?

5. The increased dwelling number will put a strain on school places, which there appear to be none spare, increased pollution close to an air quality management area, and in a pandemic setting a strain on already over-stretched medical facilities and the NHS.

Mr Rutley, we ask if you would kindly, please write to The Environment Secretary, Mr Eustice as this certainly appears to go against The Prime Minister’s statement at the party conference, and also to Mr Gove, The Secretary of State for housing, as we believe that the Planning Inspectorate must refuse any appeal on application 19/3098M.

I think the local communities of Whirley & Henbury would like to see an inquiry opened to investigate how such parcels of land were ever approved by Mr Pratt, The Local Plan Inspector. Councillors, please can you raise these concerns with the Planning Managers, and Monitoring Officer.

Broken Cross Roundabout

This busy junction is the western approach in and out of Macclesfield, and we have all sat at various times of day in the significant queues, stretching at least 150 vehicles. It says in the local plan that in order to make the flow smooth at Broken Cross, third party land would need to be purchased. Yet both the applications mentioned above, and those to the south of Chelford Road were given outline planning permission, despite the fact that the figures used did not included the traffic flow in to and out of the Tesco Express store car park, and were carried out on a day when a significant number of pupils from local school were not in attendance. To make matters worse, the latest accepted figure were taken during lockdown.

It appears that Bellway have submitted application 20/5442M to discharge their responsibility to pay for changes to Broken Cross and come to an agreement with Messers Jones & Redrow who are developing the south of Chelford Road. 

We are very concerned that the discharge must not be allowed, and We ask Mr Rutley to kindly raise our concerns with The Transport Secretary, Mr Shapps. Not altering Broken Cross will lead to increased pollution in an air quality management area with already illegal levels, potentially damage the economic viability of the town centre, and MOST IMPORTANTLY create immeasurable damage to local resident’s respiratory systems, breathing in the pollution as they visit shops and pubs in the junction area, along with children walking to distant schools as there are no places in the vicinity of the development. This will lead to premature deaths, none of us want to see any young people in our area die in the way that Ella Kissi-Debrah did in London. 

Councillors, please can you ensure that this application comes before The Strategic Planning board, this must not be decided on delegated powers.

This application does not seem to be moving anywhere, yet Bellway are advertising that houses will be available for sale in early 2022, I would ask why their proposals are not showing on the planning portal. I understand that the works at the Flower Pot junction will take no less than six months, so how on earth can these houses be marketed for early 2022, if the plans haven’t gone before The Strategic Planning Board, and it states in the outline planning conditions that “Prior to the first occupation of any dwelling built as a result of the development hereby permitted, the Broken Cross highway improvements as shown on plan reference 1916-F04 Revision B shall be carried out to the full written satisfaction of the Local Planning Authority.” Reason: To ensure the highway impact of the development is mitigated

We expect relevant notice periods must be provided for the highways work to commence, and other interested parties such as businesses and utility companies be notified and given the opportunity to plan and consider any of their own works such as re-routing pipes etc, and what damage will the works cause to the economic value of the area. Also, how can you disrupt both the A537 & A536 at the same time, it will be a disaster, and the queuing traffic will create huge amounts of pollution.

One important matter which appears to have slipped, is that Cllr Merry, the then Chair of The Strategic Planning Board, stated that all reserved matters relating to these applications must return to that board…..this is not happening, and should be. Also, the latest discharge applications did not have an address and therefore were not circulated to interested parties, or Henbury Parish Council. 

In summary, we believe these applications have been allowed to just run through without much thought, and now it is time for our local leaders to really get on top of the situation, and ensure that things are done properly, and the number of dwellings remains at 150 and the minimum amount of peat is removed to offset the massive environmental damage.

Many thanks for reading this email, and we look forward to your comments

The Residents of Henbury, Whirley & Greenside.