Councillors at Staffordshire Moorlands District Council have approved a planning permission for up to 40 new houses which they refused to approve in July this year.

Now councillors have had a change of heart and granted the application in a nail biting vote which won by one vote.

As part of the refusal for the houses south of Thorley Drive in Cheadle, councillors rejected the application on the grounds the site is located in open countryside and there is inadequate infrastructure in terms of education, health and highways. Also missing from the July refusal was key NHS information on whether the development would impact health provision in the area.

Only one day after the refusal the NHS contacted the council informing them they had no objection to the development providing £26,000 could be secured to offset the potential impact of health provision. The planning agent Dr Robert Wickham also told councillors that a number of changes to the application had been made.

Dr Wickham told councillors: "It is common knowledge there is not a five year land supply and there is a shortfall of homes when assessed against the plan requirements, in terms of the last monitoring report, a big shortfall. No five year supply and there is a particular shortfall on affordable housing, the requirements in the plan is for now is about 1600 and the actual competitions are 357, if i've got that right; certainly well below the requirement in the last report."

The plans faced 27 objections from nearby residents (Nub News).

However there were still a number of objections to the development. Cheadle Town Council, in their objection stated: "On the current development, the number of affordable houses has been dropped from 19 to 10 on the grounds that it is not financially viable. It will be no surprise if that figure disappears completely."

The application also faced 27 objections from nearby residents. Speaking at the planning meeting resident Matthew Machin told councillors: "It is not an allocated site, the site lies outside the Cheadle Development Boundary policy.

"The site is still classed as being in and the town council own landscape and character assessment and Cheadle has already achieved its target for local housing. The site will result in the boundary being pushed ever further out than is necessary."

Councillors have a wide range of views with some supporting the application and others saying it should be rejected again. Councillor Bill Cawley (Lab) said: "Some of the grounds on which the original application was rejected in July I believe have now been answered, both in terms of education policies, health board and the allocation of 106 funding into primary health.

However Planning Committee Chair, Councillor Peter Wilkinson (Ind) called the application speculative, he said: "We've got to make difficult decisions but we've got to make decisions which are right for the community and as far as I'm concerned this application is speculative. They're using the fact of a five year housing supply which we know is imminent, it's going to change in the NPPF.

"If a council has adopted a local plan in the last five years then that can't be used. What should be happening is communities should be deciding where houses and businesses go, not us as members."

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