CHESHIRE East Council is expected to make a decision next month on a 263-home estate in Crewe which is being lived in but doesn’t have planning permission.
As first revealed by the Local Democracy Reporting Service more than five months ago, the recently built Coppenhall Place, which is on the site of the former Crewe Works off West Street, was granted planning permission in 2018.
That permission was lost last year because developer Countryside Partnerships failed to deal with a condition relating to contaminated land.
At the end of March, Cheshire East’s strategic planning board deferred the application from Countryside to regularise the development. It was deferred for a peer review regarding the contaminated land issue and for an open book viability financial assessment to see whether it was appropriate to ask the developer for further contributions.
This week, more than five months after the application was deferred, the council has told the Local Democracy Reporting Service it expects to deal with the application next month.
A spokesperson for Cheshire East Council said: “Over the last few months, council officers have continued to work closely with the developers of Coppenhall Place to ensure that each reason for the application being deferred is addressed, and so that strategic planning board members have all the necessary information once the application is presented back to them.
“It is currently expected that the application will be presented back to the strategic planning board in September.”
Cheshire East Council and the developer were recently slated in the House of Commons over the ‘disgraceful situation', with the leader of the House, Penny Mordaunt MP, wondering ‘how, in God’s name, it could have happened’.
“How on earth does a local authority enable and watch homes being built, in the full knowledge that they have not been through the systems in its planning department?
“This is a disgraceful situation, and the developer and the local authority need to step up and deliver on their moral obligations to the individuals who bought those homes in good faith,” said Ms Mordaunt in May.
The next meeting of the council’s strategic planning board is due to take place on September 20.
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