This page provides regular updates on planning policy matters in Cheshire East.
The Strategic Planning Update is one of the ways that we aim to keep people in touch with planning policy matters affecting the borough.
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The council is keen to put in place a new local plan for the borough to replace the Local Plan Strategy (adopted 2017) and the Site Allocations and Development Policies Document (adopted 2022). The new plan would also include planning policies for minerals and waste, replacing the long-standing minerals and waste plans prepared by the former Cheshire County Council.
The new local plan will be prepared under a reformed plan-making system being introduced by the government. This is intended to reduce the time it takes for councils to prepare a local plan and ensure they are kept more up to date through regular reviews. The Regulations needed to bring the new system into effect were put in place at the end of March and the government has now published some guidance to help start preparing a new local plan, although there is still a significant amount of further guidance and information yet to be published.
The first formal steps under the new system are to publish a local plan timetable and “notice of intention to commence local plan preparation”. The council intends to publish these in June, and start the formal process of consultation and engagement with the local plan scoping consultation during the summer.
The council has recently carried out a call for sites for housing, economic, minerals and waste uses to gain an early understanding of what land may be available to meet future needs in the new local plan. An interactive map of the housing and employment sites submitted in 2024 has been published. We are currently cataloguing and mapping the sites submitted in the most recent call for sites and will add them to the map in due course.
Understanding land availability is an essential part of the production of a new local plan. National planning guidance suggests that this is one of the ‘get ready’ activities that can be undertaken in the early stages of plan production and before the formal 30 month plan process starts.
The government introduced some significant changes to national planning policy in December 2024. This included changes to the way that local housing need figures are calculated for each council area. In line with the government’s aim to see 1.5 million additional homes built in England by 2029, housing need figures for most areas were significantly increased. In the case of Cheshire East annual local housing need was increased from just under 1,000 homes to around 2,600 homes.
Under national planning policy, Cheshire East is required to maintain a forward supply of land for housing development equivalent to 5 years of its local housing need figure (currently 2,507 dwellings per year plus a 5% buffer). This is known as the deliverable housing land supply.
The council’s latest Housing Monitoring Update (base date 31 March 2025) was published in April 2026. The published report identifies a deliverable five- year housing land supply of 8,780 dwellings which equates to a 3.3 year supply measured against the five-year local housing need figure of 13,162 dwellings. When homes are completed, they fall out of the future supply and since the last reporting period in 2024 more homes have been built out than new planning consents granted. Therefore, the overall supply has declined from 3.8 years to the latest position of 3.3 years.
Where the deliverable housing land supply is lower than the required 5 years, national policy says that in some cases, housing developments must be permitted even where they are contrary to Local Plan policies. Factoring in other changes to national planning policy, including the introduction of ‘grey belt’ within the Green Belt, this has prompted an increasing number of planning applications for housing developments, most notably on land designated in the Local Plan as open countryside on the edge of towns and villages.
Every year the council updates and publishes its Brownfield Land Register which is a statutory requirement. The register contains a list of sites that meet the definition of previously developed land set out in the national policy, meet certain site size thresholds, and are considered suitable, available and achievable for residential led development. Therefore the register is not a list of all brownfield land in the borough – various caveats apply before sites can be entered onto it. The latest version of the register and the accompanying methodology can be viewed on the council’s Brownfield Land Register page.
The council will be carrying out a Green Belt Assessment (GBA) during 2026. The government expects all local planning authorities in England that contain Green Belt land to carry out such an assessment to inform their local plans. The purpose of these assessments is to ensure that land within the Green Belt is protected while also allowing for development that meets housing and other development needs. The work will assess how land contributes to the purposes of the Green Belt as set out in national planning policy. A key output of the work will be the identification of grey belt land which could, if necessary, be considered for release from the Green Belt for housing and/or other development.
The September 2025 Strategic Planning Update highlighted that the council is working jointly with Cheshire West and Chester Council, Warrington Borough Council and Halton Borough Council to prepare a new Gypsy and Traveller Accommodation Needs Assessment. This work is still ongoing and will identify the level of new homes needed to meet the needs of Gypsies and Travellers and inform policies in the council’s new local plan. National planning policy requires councils to assess this need and set out proposals within their local plans to meet it. The new GTANA is expected to be published in the early summer and will replace the current one completed in 2018.
The Nether Alderley and Ollerton with Marthall plans have both concluded their independent examinations and the decisions to proceed to referendum are in progress.
The Congleton and Weston and Crewe Green plans are both currently undergoing their independent examinations.
The Submission Draft Cranage Neighbourhood Plan is currently out for consultation. You can comment on the Cranage plan until 30 April 2026.
Consultation on the First Draft Brereton Neighbourhood Plan (modification) recently ended on 7 April 2026.
The First Draft Marbury and District Neighbourhood Plan is currently out for consultation. You can comment on the Marbury and District plan until 15 May 2026.