Cheshire East’s Strategic Planning Board has resolved to approve 293 Wilmslow homes on safeguarded land, subject to section 106 agreements and conditions. The official meeting recording confirms that members backed both schemes on 16th September 2026.
The applications concern 125 homes off Cumber Lane and 168 homes at Dean Row Road. The council’s reports explain how the national planning policies introduced a month earlier strengthened the case for approval.
These resolutions do not themselves issue planning permission. As checked on 17th September 2026, the official planning register still recorded both applications as Pending Consideration, with no decision dates or decision notices available.
Where the 293 Wilmslow homes would be built
Bellway’s Cumber Lane application, 25/1573/FUL, proposes 125 homes on part of the land safeguarded under Local Plan Strategy site policy LPS 59. The Cumber Lane officer report records 38 affordable homes, comprising 25 for social rent and 13 intermediate affordable homes. Members voted seven to four in favour.
Dean Row Road application 25/2071/FUL, from Jones Homes and Taylor Wimpey, proposes 168 homes with 30% affordable housing. Its site is safeguarded under LPS 58. The vote was eight in favour, one against and two abstentions.
The board had deferred Dean Row Road on 22nd July 2026 for further work on construction access, trees and hedgerows, cycle facilities, drainage, public transport and a requested NHS contribution. The September officer report revisited those matters and reassessed the proposal against the new national policies.
Safeguarded land is not a housing allocation
Safeguarded land provides for possible growth beyond a development plan’s period without putting that land into the Green Belt. It remains unallocated for development at that stage. Cheshire East’s plan period runs until 2030.
The designation does not mean that housing is automatically acceptable, or that a developer simply waits for an automatic release. Policy PG 4 applies open countryside policies to the council’s safeguarded land, while Policy PG 6 restricts the forms of development normally permitted there.
The August 2026 NPPF’s plan-making policy GB4 continues to distinguish safeguarded land from land allocated for development. Its designation is changed through a plan update. Deciding a particular application is a separate exercise, governed by the development plan and relevant material considerations.
What changed in the August 2026 NPPF?
The NPPF published on 17th August 2026 introduced national decision-making policies which applied immediately. Policy S3 directs proposals outside settlements to Policy S5.
Policy S5(1)(j) supports development addressing evidenced unmet need, including housing where the council cannot demonstrate a five-year supply. It also requires development to be physically well related to an existing settlement and of a scale that existing or proposed infrastructure can accommodate.
For proposals within the relevant S5 categories, the policy favours approval unless adverse effects substantially outweigh the benefits, assessed against the national decision-making policies. Housing need opens an important policy route, but the site and its impacts still require assessment.
Annex A says that development-plan policies materially inconsistent with the new national decision-making policies should receive very limited weight, subject to its exception for policies examined and adopted or made against the new Framework. Other policies do not lose weight simply because they predate it.
The Local Plan still mattered
The Cumber Lane report expressly identified conflict with PG 4, PG 6 and LPS 59. Officers considered those policies materially inconsistent with S5 and gave them very limited weight.
The Dean Row Road papers identified conflict with PG 4, PG 6 and LPS 58. The September assessment applied the new national policies and concluded that the presumption favouring development had become stronger, while the earlier assessment remained relevant.
This changed the planning balance; it did not change the sites’ allocations. The statutory starting point remains the development plan, unless material considerations indicate otherwise. National policy affected the weight and balance in that assessment.
Why a 3.3-year housing supply was significant
The Cumber Lane report cites the council’s Housing Monitoring Update, published in April 2026 with a base date of 31st March 2025. It records 8,780 deliverable homes against a five-year requirement of 13,162, giving a 3.3-year housing land supply.
The annual figure used was 2,632 homes, including a 5% buffer, compared with the adopted plan’s 1,800-home annual requirement. Dean Row Road’s assessment also relies on the 3.3-year supply as evidence of unmet need under S5.
Past delivery and future supply are different measures. Cumber Lane’s report records a 213% Housing Delivery Test result, published on 17th August 2026, but that did not remove the shortage of demonstrably deliverable sites for the coming five years.
Planning Geek’s five-year housing land supply guide explains why a council can have a good delivery record and still face a supply deficit.
The detailed assessments were not identical
At Cumber Lane, officers recognised adverse effects from peat removal and shortcomings in aspects of the layout and open space. They nevertheless concluded that the adverse effects did not substantially outweigh the benefits.
A late update corrected the biodiversity weighting. Off-site mitigation was needed to achieve the required 10% gain for area habitats, attracting neutral weight. Above-minimum hedgerow and watercourse gains remained positive considerations.
At Dean Row Road, officers examined drainage and the other reasons for deferral. They removed the requested NHS contribution because the evidence did not establish that it met the necessary planning-obligation tests.
Officers also recommended a two-year commencement period. Policy HO13 encourages consideration of a shorter start period where that would expedite housing without threatening implementation or viability.
The practical lesson for safeguarded sites
Planning Geek’s analysis: safeguarded status cannot answer an application on its own. Applicants and objectors need to examine national policy, the actual development-plan conflict, housing need, settlement relationship, infrastructure and site-specific harm.
These reports show how development outside a settlement boundary can gain support under S5. They do not establish that every safeguarded site should receive permission, or that committee support removes the remaining legal and decision-making steps.
Created: 17th September 2026
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