Strategic planning update

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.  However, the national reforms have been stop-start and are taking a lot longer to bring into effect than was promised. It is hoped that the final legal and policy changes needed to get the new system up and running will now be in place by the end of 2025. That will then allow a formal start to be made on the Council’s new Plan.

To assist with the new Plan, an Issues Paper was published for public consultation between March and July last year. It invited views on the various matters that the new Local Plan may need to consider, for example how future development needs should be met and how local priorities should be addressed.

Alongside the Issues Paper, the Council also sought views on some supporting reports that will help to inform future planning policies and proposals.  In addition, people were invited to submit sites that they considered suitable and available for future development. This is known as a ‘call for sites’.  

You can read more about the consultation and a summary of the feedback that the Council received in the published Issues paper report of consultation.

Information about the sites received through the ‘call for sites’ will be published in due course.

An updated  GTANA is being prepared by the Council, working jointly with Cheshire West and Chester Council, Warrington Borough Council and Halton Borough Council. The  GTANA will identify the level of new homes needed to meet the needs of Gypsies and Travellers and inform policies in the 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 early 2026 and will replace the current one completed in 2018. 

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 plus 5%. This is known as the deliverable housing land supply. The change in its local housing need figure has meant that Cheshire East’s deliverable housing land supply has fallen dramatically - from more than 10 years to 3.8 years. Where this 5-year threshold is not met, it opens the door for housing developments to be permitted 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.

You can read how the Council’s deliverable housing land supply is calculated in the latest Housing Monitoring Update.

As well as publishing its forward supply of deliverable housing land, the Council also publishes figures for how many additional homes have been built each year in the borough. Between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025, 2,045 additional new homes were completed.

You can see the breakdown of where this new housing development has taken place across the borough in the latest Housing completions and supply.

The Council produces an  AMR every year to review progress on implementing the planning policies in the Local Plan. In April 2025, the Council published its latest AMR  covering the year from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024.

Earlier this year the government decided to stop funding for the neighbourhood planning support programme. This does not affect any funded support packages for neighbourhood planning groups agreed prior to March, although these will need to be completed by the end of March 2026.

The programme has been invaluable in establishing neighbourhood planning over the last decade. Over a thousand plans have passed referendum across the country. The take-up of neighbourhood plans by Town and Parish Councils and communities in Cheshire East has been impressive, with 41 plans having passed referendum. Despite the curtailment of government funding to the neighbourhood support programme, there may be other ways to fund plan-making work including through the precept. However, this will not be a ready option for some groups unfortunately.

Current neighbourhood planning activity includes:

• Ollerton with Marthall - public consultation is taking place on their submitted plan until 24/09/25
• Weston and Crewe Green – public consultation is taking place on their draft plan until 12/09/25
• Congleton, Nether Alderley, Bunbury (modification), Odd Rode, Mobberley, and Cranage - all have concluded public consultation on their draft plans prior to formal submission.

You can read more about neighbourhood planning and the plans that have passed referendum in Cheshire East on the Council’s Neighbourhood Planning web pages.