Following a decision by cabinet, Cheshire East Council has today published its revised Site Allocation Development Policies Document (Local Plan Part 2). As a result, all green belt sites that had previously been allocated for development within Local Service Centres have been removed from the plan. Locally this means that the following sites have been removed and will remain as green belt: ALD1 (land adjacent to Jenny Heyes, previously allocated for 10 homes); ALD2 (land adjacent to Ryleys Farm, previously allocated for 50 homes); ALD4 (land north of Beech Road, previously allocated for 25 homes)
I welcome this announcement, which helps secure precious green belt surrounding Alderley Edge for the foreseeable future. The council received almost 3,000 representations following publication of the previous version of the SADPD and I am pleased that we have been able to show that Cheshire East Council now listens to the views of its residents.
There is still a requirement for Local Service Centres (villages and smaller settlements) to allocate "safeguarded" land for potential development within a future plan period. As part of this, site ALD3 (2.23ha of land adjacent to Ryleys Farm) has been allocated; however, this should not come forward for development prior to 2030 at the earliest.
As someone who enjoys the green belt twice daily whilst walking my dogs, this is such wonderful news. I did wonder how ALD4 was going to resolve the flooding issues in those fields sufficiently to be safe to build houses on, so that’s no longer an issue either. Really excellent news. Our green fields are so precious. We have done well to protect them for our children’s generation.
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