THE design and lay-out of a 400 home scheme on the edge of Crewe have been given the green light by Cheshire East councillors with one saying: "This is what things should look like."

Outline permission had already been granted for up to 400 homes on the 60-acre site at Leighton to the north-east of Flowers Lane and to the west of Moss Lane.

Councillors at today's (Wednesday) meeting of the strategic planning board unanimously approved the reserved matters application for access, appearance, landscaping, layout and scale submitted by Mulbury Homes Limited and Torus62 Development.

Cllr Stewart Gardiner admitted: "I couldn't find anything wrong with it, and I tried. In terms of house types we've got 30 per cent affordable housing, we've got a thorough mix of house types.

"We've got bungalows, we've got detached houses, we've got a good mix of in-betweens. We've got a carefully thought-out site layout, we've got houses that go round corners, we've got a mix of house types in terms of the architectural features and this is what I want to see every time we have an application before us.

"This is what things should look like. If this looks, when it's built, as good as it does on the paper, this is going to be a really good part of Leighton to live.

"The fact we've got a housing association working with a house builder from the beginning is a positive because that's the way it should be."

Board chair Mike Hunter said: "The pepper-potting was not ideal but when you look at the site, it's nice to see they haven't just tried to shove some of the social housing off to the rear or tuck it away somewhere. Some of it is in prominent positions, which I think is very good."

Nantwich South and Stapeley councillor seconded the proposal to approve and said: "I think this does have the makings of a very good scheme."

But Cllr Patrick Redstone added: "We should have a condition regarding the sound generated by this site [during construction] because of its nearness to Leighton Hospital."

Planning officer Adrian Crowther said this was already included in one of the conditions but councillors did ask for this to be an "expressed add-on" and it was conditioned.

Crewe South councillor Steve Hogben said: "This application details look pretty good, but we're not quite clear necessarily about the overall picture."

This application is part of a larger development of the area.

Leighton ward councillor Byron Evans, who submitted his representations in a lengthy statement read out at the beginning of the meeting by an officer, described the application as "piecemeal".

"I define piecemeal as a large housing complex, in this case 400 houses, with no central community area," Cllr Evans said in his statement.

He said he was disappointed houses were going to be built on green fields.

"Not because I'm totally against building houses, but these developments are causing more traffic problems, especially at Barrows Green and on to Bradfield Road. These are frequent issues raised by residents."

He also asked highways to look at putting bus stops along Flowers Lane for the two estates.

The application was unanimously approved, subject to a number of conditions, including one asking for provision of a bus stop within the site.

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