Cheshire East borough residential design guide 

Cheshire East is a fantastic part of the country, where picturesque market towns nestle within unspoilt countryside. The Borough’s character and attractiveness underpins the quality of life enjoyed by residents and promotes inward investment.  

Whilst development and progress are all part of our future, in planning for growth we need to ensure that the pace and scale of change is not detrimental to the existing quality of the environment. Also, that new development reinforces and enhances the Borough’s special character and that homes are well designed and set within high quality environments, providing a decent quality of life and sense of wellbeing.

As part of its planning for sustainable development Cheshire East Council has prepared a Residential Design Guide. The Guide was adopted as a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) to the new Local Plan on 2nd May 2017.

Whilst guidance is geared principally toward larger scale housing proposals, it is also relevant to smaller scale development. The intention is to both guide and improve the quality of new development, but also to provide a basis from which Cheshire East Council can, if necessary, reject housing design that does not contribute positively to Cheshire East or provide well built, attractive, “liveable” homes and places.

Preparation of the design guide entailed significant engagement with stakeholders and has been subject to formal consultation and sustainability assessment. The outcome of those processes is set out in the following documents:

The SPD adoption statements can be viewed here:

For more information, contact: designconsultations@cheshireeast.gov.uk

Page last reviewed: 09 October 2023