Full text:
I write to register my formal objection to the inclusion of the above submission in Cheshire East Council's Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHELAA) and to request that all 12 sites be excluded from further consideration in the emerging Local Plan.
Tatton Estates has submitted 291.03 hectares of agricultural land across Ashley Parish. At standard suburban densities of 30 to 40 dwellings per hectare, this equates to between 8,700 and 11,640 new dwellings. The promoter's own cover letter, dated 31 March 2026, confirms the ambition at 11,000 homes and 490,000 square metres of commercial floorspace. This is not a minor extension to a settlement edge. It is the wholesale obliteration of a functioning rural parish.
I am aware that the council cannot currently demonstrate a Five-Year Housing Land Supply (5YHLS) under the updated national targets, which engages the tilted balance at paragraph 11 of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). However, the tilted balance does not override all material planning considerations. National policy retains explicit, categorical protections for Green Belt land, Best and Most Versatile (BMV) agricultural land, and statutory environmental designations. Each of those protections applies here, independently and in combination. The case for exclusion from the SHELAA is clear and I set out the grounds below in full.
Ground 1: Green Belt Designation and Failure of the Grey Belt Test
Ashley Parish sits within the North Cheshire Green Belt and carries wash-over Green Belt status, the most protective classification available under the national framework. This designation was established in the 1950s to prevent the southward expansion of the Manchester conurbation and to maintain the separation between the Greater Manchester settlements of Hale, Hale Barns and Altrincham, and the Cheshire East villages and towns of Mobberley and Knutsford.
NPPF paragraph 145 states that Green Belt boundaries may only be altered through a Local Plan review in exceptional circumstances, and only after all other reasonable options have been explored. The submission does not begin to demonstrate exceptional circumstances. More fundamentally, the land fails the Grey Belt test. Under national policy, Green Belt may only be considered for release where it constitutes previously developed land or land that makes a negligible contribution to Green Belt purposes. Open, working farmland does neither.
The submission conflicts directly with three of the five Green Belt purposes set out in NPPF paragraph 143:
‒ Purpose (a) – Check unrestricted sprawl: Ashley provides the primary physical barrier preventing the Manchester conurbation from expanding southwards into rural Cheshire. Releasing 291.03 hectares here removes that barrier permanently.
‒ Purpose (b) – Prevent the merging of towns: Development at this scale and location would physically close the gap between Greater Manchester settlements and the Cheshire villages to the south, creating continuous urbanisation across what is currently open countryside.
‒ Purpose (c) – Safeguard the countryside from encroachment: The land is active agricultural countryside in productive use. Its inclusion in the SHELAA and subsequent allocation would represent precisely the encroachment that Green Belt policy exists to prevent.
The council should not include land within the SHELAA where Green Belt release would require exceptional circumstances that have not been demonstrated and where the land fails the Grey Belt test on its face. Inclusion in the SHELAA at this stage would prejudice the Local Plan process by treating Green Belt land as available when national policy makes clear that it is not.
Ground 2: Best and Most Versatile Agricultural Land
Field-level soil data, including published sampling from the HS2 Phase 2b Environmental Statement (document reference MA06), confirms that Ashley's farmland contains extensive Grade 2 BMV land on lighter Wick 1 soils near river terraces, and Subgrade 3a BMV land where topsoil consists of medium clay loam over Salop boulder clay.
NPPF paragraph 180(b) requires local planning authorities to give significant weight to the economic and other benefits of BMV agricultural land (Grades 1, 2 and 3a) and to avoid its permanent loss unless it can be demonstrated that the need for development is sufficiently compelling to outweigh those benefits. No such demonstration has been made here. The land is active farmland. Its loss to development would be irreversible.
National food security has been a stated government priority across successive administrations. The protection of Grade 2 and Subgrade 3a land is not a formality. It is a substantive, enforceable policy safeguard that the council must apply at the SHELAA stage. Sites that include significant areas of BMV land should not be assessed as available without first establishing that the national policy tests are capable of being met. They are not met here.
Ground 3: Statutory Environmental Designations and Ecological Constraints
The submission area and its immediate surroundings carry multiple statutory and non-statutory environmental designations, each of which represents an independent ground for exclusion or significant constraint:
• Cotterill Clough Nature Reserve is a 14-acre SSSI managed by the Cheshire Wildlife Trust and lies directly adjacent to the submission area. Development of the scale proposed would cause irreversible harm to this designated habitat through noise, light, surface water runoff, and increased recreational pressure. The council has a legal duty under section 28G of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (as amended) to take reasonable steps to further the conservation and enhancement of SSSIs. Advancing this submission is inconsistent with that duty.
• The land falls within two local landscape designations: the Bollin Valley and Parklands Local Landscape Designation (BVP-LLD) and the Rostherne/Tatton Park Local Landscape Designation (RT-LLD). The Bollin Valley Partnership Area provides active protection to the River Bollin corridor running directly through Ashley. These designations exist to protect the visual and environmental quality of the landscape from exactly this type of large-scale greenfield development.
• The area contains documented habitat corridors for bats, owls, badgers and Great Crested Newts, all of which carry legal protection under the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 and the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Protected woodlands include Sunbank Wood, Hancock's Banks, Ryecroft Covert, Lamb's Covert, Hardy's Covert and Jackson's Bank. Comprehensive Tree Preservation Orders cover historic field margins and estate tree belts throughout the area. Development of 291.03 hectares would destroy these habitats. A SHELAA assessment that treats the land as available without accounting for these constraints is not legally robust.
Ground 4: Designated Heritage Assets and Setting
Ashley Parish contains 19 Grade II listed buildings of national importance. The setting of each is a material planning consideration under section 66 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990. The council, as competent authority, must have special regard to the desirability of preserving the setting of listed buildings. Development of this scale and character across 291.03 hectares of open countryside would cause demonstrable, material harm to the settings of multiple listed structures simultaneously. That is not a consideration to be balanced lightly. The courts have been clear that section 66 creates a strong presumption against harm that goes beyond a simple balancing exercise.
Ashley Hall itself carries exceptional heritage significance: Roman ironworks, a 13th-century hunting lodge, the 1490 hall associated with Mary Queen of Scots, and historic grounds associated with the Brereton family. The 12th-century fortification near Castle Mill Farm and the Arts and Crafts house known as Midways add further heritage depth. The historic field patterns, estate boundaries and ancient hedgerows associated with the Tatton Estate constitute a coherent historic landscape whose character would be fundamentally and irreversibly altered by development of this scale.
Ground 5: Infrastructure Incapacity
The submission is not deliverable. The infrastructure constraints facing Ashley Parish are not minor viability considerations to be resolved through planning conditions. They are physical and operational constraints that cannot be engineered away at a proportionate cost:
‒ Rail: Ashley station operates at a maximum frequency of one train per hour in each direction. The planned new Cheadle station, which has planning permission and full funding, will reduce Ashley's service to one train every two hours. That level of rail provision cannot support a settlement of up to 11,640 dwellings. It cannot support a settlement a tenth of that size to a sustainable standard.
‒ Highways: Local access routes consist of narrow rural lanes constrained by restricted-height railway bridges and acute physical pinch points. These converge on the A538 and M56, both of which already operate at capacity during peak periods. There is no credible highway solution that does not require disproportionate public expenditure.
‒ Manchester Airport: The submission land falls within operational flight path noise contours and bird-strike hazard safety zones associated with Manchester Airport. High-density residential development within these zones is functionally unsuitable and operationally incompatible with airport safety requirements.
‒ Drainage and utilities: The parish lacks deep sewer capacity, adequate grid connections and surface water drainage infrastructure. Surface water flood risk to the River Bollin catchment is high. Development of this scale would require entirely new infrastructure, the cost and deliverability of which has not been assessed.
A site that is not deliverable within the plan period cannot properly be included in the SHELAA as an available housing land supply. The council's assessment must take these constraints into account before, not after, inclusion.
Ground 6: The Promoter's Public Statements Are Inconsistent with the Submission
Tatton Estates has made public statements characterising concerns about 11,000 dwellings as scaremongering. The promoter's own cover letter to the 2026 Call for Sites submission, dated 31 March 2026, states otherwise. That letter confirms: that sites capable of delivering 11,000 homes and 490,000 square metres of commercial floorspace remain available; that "this representation confirms that the sites are available, suitable, achievable and deliverable for the proposed uses"; and that "for the avoidance of doubt, all of the sites submitted to the 2024 Call for Sites exercise are still available to meet more of Cheshire East's housing needs during and beyond this plan period."
The council should assess the submission on the basis of what has been formally submitted, not on the basis of the promoter's public communications. The formal submission is for 291.03 hectares capable of 11,000 dwellings. That is the proposal the council is being asked to assess, and it is the proposal that must be tested against all material planning constraints.
The Cumulative Case for Exclusion from the SHELAA
Each of the grounds set out above constitutes an independent basis on which the council should exclude this submission from the SHELAA. Taken together, they are overwhelming. This is wash-over Green Belt land that fails the Grey Belt test, containing Grade 2 and Subgrade 3a BMV agricultural soil, adjacent to a SSSI, within two local landscape designations, containing documented protected species habitats, adjacent to 19 Grade II listed buildings, encumbered by infrastructure constraints that are not capable of resolution within a plan period, and promoted on the basis of ambitions that the promoter has sought to downplay publicly while formally confirming them to the council.
The tilted balance engaged by the council's 5YHLS deficit does not dissolve these protections. NPPF paragraph 11(d)(i) is clear: the tilted balance does not apply where specific policies in the framework indicate that development should be restricted. Green Belt, BMV land protection and statutory environmental designations are precisely such policies. The council is not compelled to include this land in the SHELAA to satisfy its housing requirement. It is required to apply national policy robustly and to ensure that its Local Plan evidence base reflects those protections accurately.
Request
I request that Cheshire East Council:
‒ Exclude all 12 Ashley Parish sites submitted by Tatton Estates from the SHELAA on the grounds set out in this letter.
‒ Confirm in writing that the Green Belt, BMV agricultural land, SSSI adjacency, heritage setting, and infrastructure constraints have each been assessed as material constraints capable of preventing inclusion.
‒ Ensure that the SHELAA methodology is published and made available for public comment before site assessments are finalised.
‒ Give full weight in the emerging Local Plan to the cumulative planning harm that would result from the development of any part of the 291.03-hectare submission.
I would welcome confirmation that this representation has been registered.
