Macclesfield Borough Council Lifts House-Building Restrictions

PRESS RELEASE

Tight restrictions which have governed  new housing in the Borough of Macclesfield over the last four years have been lifted.

Macclesfield’s Cabinet made the decision after being told about Government changes to a regional development plan, the Regional Spatial Strategy for the North West, which will require an average of 400 houses per year to be built over the next 15 years, a rate double that of recent years based upon current planning guidelines.

The current restrictions have enabled MBC to meet the previous 200 annual rate by limiting new housing to affordable homes, special needs’ accommodation, care accommodation, and other cases such as the reuse and conversion of listed buildings. The policy has been very successful in bringing these types of sites forward for development to meet local housing needs in all parts of the Borough.
 
Cabinet Member for Planning and Development, Jamie Macrae, said: “The policy has achieved its twin aims over the last few years �" the supply of new housing has been restricted locally to meet wider regional and national planning objectives and we have managed to meet a number of local and specialist housing needs at the same time. But to meet the new regional requirement we have to double the number of houses permitted, so we have to lift the moratorium.”

In its place, Cabinet has agreed to provide advice to developers to enable them to make a self-assessment of the suitability of their sites for housing use,  based upon a range of  national, regional and local planning policies particularly to give priority to brownfield sites in sustainable locations with good access to local services, facilities and shops.

John Knight, MBC’s Corporate Manager for Planning, says: “We want to encourage developers and landowners to assess their own sites and schemes to see how they meet planning objectives before submitting their applications to the Council. It is a sustainability-led approach. Applications should meet the housing needs of the Borough, be sited in appropriate locations, make effective and efficient use of land and be of high quality design. Areas such as the Green Belt and open spaces within our towns will however continue to be protected from development.”