No shortage of housing supply at Cheshire East

Cheshire East Council is more than pulling its weight to ease the national housing crisis – according to recent figures. 

At a time when the prime minister has launched changes to the National Planning Policy Framework with the aim of addressing a historic shortage of new homes across England, Cheshire East Council has taken significant steps to provide the homes local people need.

Sean Hannaby director of planning and environment for Cheshire East Council, said: “We are taking a multi-faceted approach to improving housing supply with a series of measures to ensure homes get built.”

The following is a list of some of the key achievements the council has made with regard to its housing supply:

· The Cheshire East Local Plan Strategy allocates some 990ha for new homes – that is the equivalent of around 1,400 full-sized football pitches.

· At the last annual assessment (31 March 2017), the council had granted planning permission for more than 20,441 homes through the planning application process – that is more homes than Sandbach, Alsager and Middlewich combined.

· Housing completions have risen year-on-year from 614 homes in 2012/13, to a record 1,763 homes in 2016/17. Provisional figures indicate completions will exceed 2,000 homes in 2017/18.

· Progress on existing housing sites is exceeding expectations. In the last financial year, 10 major housing sites recorded housing completions more than 50 per cent higher than expected. By December 2017, 37 per cent of major residential developments, starting on site since April, did so ahead of anticipated schedule.

Mr Hannaby said: “With the scale of housing land available and the excellent progress being made on many existing housing sites, the council is clear that it can demonstrate more than five years of available housing supply.

“With so much land already available, we need to concentrate on getting homes built, not releasing yet more land into the system. This is why we are determined to challenge erroneous appeal decisions, tackle the small minority of developers who aren’t building – and work positively with those in the housing industry who are ‘cracking on’ and building the homes people need.”