Middlewich Memorial Garden Project – Public Meeting

Cheshire East Council Emergency AssistanCE Scheme Consultation

Cheshire East Council Emergency AssistanCE Scheme Review 2021

In 2013 the council introduced its Emergency AssistanCE scheme. The scheme is designed to support vulnerable people facing immediate hardship, to prevent homelessness, and to keep families together. The scheme provides rent deposits, furniture, white goods and emergency food to help those in need.

Full details on the current scheme can be found at www.cheshireeast.gov.uk/emergencyassistance.

To ensure the scheme is meeting need and providing value for money a review of it is being undertaken by the Benefits Team and the council’s Corporate Policy Committee. The review is being undertaken to ensure that the right advice and guidance is provided to people who might be facing an emergency.

Click here to view more information and feed back on the Emergency AssistanCE Scheme Review

Please feed back your views on this review by 2 January 2022.

Cheshire East Council New Planning Guides

Two new planning guides have been published by Cheshire East Council.

They give residents and developers the chance to voice their views on how best to protect the environment and explain how the council secures funding for infrastructure projects.

From new schools to green spaces, delivering key infrastructure is an essential part of the council’s responsibilities to residents and underpins the authority’s core objective to create an ‘open, green and fair’ borough.

To ensure schemes do not have a harmful impact on communities, planning permission for major developments often requires a developer to make payments towards a range of additional services. These can include a new school, highways infrastructure or health centre, depending on the scale of the development.

The council’s Local Plan sets out how developers should do this and how the borough’s infrastructure should be paid for. Occasionally, the council will fund and build infrastructure first, for example a road scheme, to open up employment or housing sites, with the intention of recovering its investment from the developers who then build on these sites.

‘Recovery of Forward Funded Infrastructure Costs’ is a new supplementary planning document (SPD) explaining how the council seeks to recover its investment in new infrastructure projects. The guide sets out those schemes the council expects to recover costs from, the overall amount and how the developer’s contribution is calculated.

The council has also prepared an environmental protection SPD. This will assist council decision making, while providing guidance to developers. It sets out the type of information the council will require in a planning application, how it applies existing policies and the measures it expects to see to minimise any environmental impact, such as air quality, noise pollution, dust, smells and other pollution. 

The council seeks to minimise the potential impact of development on local communities and the environment, while recognising that the right infrastructure supports all our communities to thrive.

Councillor Mick Warren, Cheshire East Council chair of environment and communities, said: “While an SPD is not part of a statutory development plan, it is an important tool and these two documents set out how developers should expect to contribute to infrastructure that they rely on, and how they should manage and mitigate environmental issues related to their sites.

“This should help developers come up with better designs, make sure their costing is accurate and ensure the council receives the contributions it needs to make growth work for the borough.”

Protecting your environment and infrastructure funding Consultation

The Environmental Protection  SPD and Recovery of Forward Funded Infrastructure Costs SPD have both been published for consultation between the 18 October 2021 and 29 November 2021. To find out more, make or view representations, please visit the Strategic Planning consultation portal link below.

Please submit your representations by midnight on the 29 November 2021

Comments can also be posted to:

Strategic Planning (Westfields), c/o Municipal Buildings, Earle Street, Crewe CW1 2BJ.