Neighbourhood Plan Frequently Asked Questions

Shavington-cum-Gresty is facing significant pressure for new housing. There are already planning applications, pre-application discussions and land promotion activity taking place in and around the parish.

The Parish Council cannot simply prevent all development. National planning policy expects areas to plan positively for housing, and the wider Cheshire East planning context means that speculative housing proposals are likely to continue to come forward.

The purpose of reviewing the Neighbourhood Plan is therefore to make sure that future growth is planned rather than left to a series of separate planning applications. By allocating sites and setting clear local requirements, the community can have more influence over where development takes place, what it provides and how it protects the character and identity of Shavington-cum-Gresty.

No. The review is about responding realistically to the pressure for development that already exists.

Doing nothing would not mean that housing proposals disappear. It would mean that decisions are more likely to be made site by site, often through speculative planning applications, with less opportunity for the Parish Council and local community to influence the location of growth or secure improvements alongside it.

Cheshire East Council has provided an indicative housing figure of approximately 840 homes for the parish over the 20-year Plan period.

The modified Neighbourhood Plan should seek to meet or exceed this figure through a realistic, deliverable and sustainable strategy. This is not a number created by the Parish Council. It reflects the wider planning context and the need for Shavington-cum-Gresty to plan responsibly for its future. The final number in the neighbourhood plan is likely to exceed this figure to provide a buffer and  ensure development can fund the required infrastructure improvements.

Shavington-cum-Gresty is an attractive and accessible place to live. It is close to Crewe, Nantwich, major employment areas and the strategic road network. It has already experienced considerable growth in recent years (with the population increasing by 50% since 2001) and there is clear interest from landowners and developers in bringing forward further sites.

The Parish Council recognises that this level of growth is challenging. However, a more coordinated approach creates the critical mass needed to secure infrastructure and facilities that smaller or scattered developments are unlikely to provide.

The question is not simply whether growth will happen, but whether it will be planned in a way that improves the parish for existing and future residents and ensure that infrastructure improvements keep up with development.

This option was considered as part of the scenario-planning work.

Smaller, dispersed sites may appear less significant individually, but together they can create traffic, pressure on local services and loss of countryside without providing the scale of development needed to fund major community improvements.

They are also less likely to provide a new school, meaningful sports provision, safer walking and cycling routes, new community facilities or a coordinated network of public open spaces or environmental green corridors.

A more planned approach allows the Parish Council to seek one joined-up package of infrastructure, green space and community benefits, rather than accepting a number of disconnected developments with limited wider benefit.

The Parish Council considered a range of broad growth scenarios rather than selecting individual sites in isolation. Details of the Settlement Spatial Planning work can be found on the parish council website

These included:

• distributed growth across a number of smaller locations; (Scenario 1)
• growth to the north of the bypass, closer to existing facilities at Rope Lane and Gresty; (Scenario 2)
• larger-scale western growth (Scenario 3) ; and
• growth to the east of Shavington (Scenario 4)

Each option had advantages and disadvantages.

In summary:

The western option (Scenario 3) whilst located in a location which minimised additional traffic movements and has the potential to provide new community facilities on site, has uncertainty around land availability and access arrangements.

Distributed growth (Scenario 1) offered limited opportunities for coordinated infrastructure and community benefits.

The northern option (Scenario 2) whilst located in the green gap, offered closer links to the medical centre, secondary school and leisure centre, together with opportunities to improve connections between Gresty and the rest of the parish, provide a local centre to serve both Gresty and Shavington residents and minimise the impact of additional traffic movements through Shavington village centre.

The eastern option (Scenario 3) offered an opportunity to create a more comprehensive, masterplanned community, including new facilities, recreation space and a stronger local focus for Shavington but did not address the “One Parish, One Community One Vision” established from the governance review, growing further away from Gresty and from existing community facilities such as the secondary school, leisure centre and medical centre.

No single scenario provided all the answers and none can overcome some of the constraints identified. Having discounted scenario 1 due to its inability to provide the community benefits which only come with larger schemes and discounting scenario 3 because at this time an insufficient number of land parcels within the scenario are available and with some sites land locked, the focus was on scenario 2 and scenario 4.

The preferred approach combines scenario 2 (northern option) with a site from scenario 3 (eastern option) because overall their location is considered the most sustainable and it meets the housing requirement figure; scenario 2 and 3 individually did not do this.

The northern sites provide an opportunity to improve links between Gresty, Rope Lane and the rest of Shavington-cum-Gresty. It is close to important existing facilities, including the medical centre, secondary school and leisure centre. It can also help reduce the physical severance created by the A500 bypass.

Together, the hybrid approach concentrates development sufficiently to deliver meaningful infrastructure, a new primary school, active-travel improvements, community/medical facilities, recreation and open space, environmental corridors and well as links to new sports facilities and a new local centre.

The preferred approach is informed by the strong message that emerged through the Community Governance Review: local people valued Shavington-cum-Gresty remaining together as one parish and one community.

The A500 bypass creates a real physical barrier between Shavington and Gresty. This affects how easily people can move between the two areas and can make Gresty feel separated from many of the parish’s day-to-day facilities.

The northern element of the preferred approach is intended to help reduce this sense of severance. It seeks to improve walking, cycling and public-transport connections between Gresty, Rope Lane and Shavington, while supporting facilities and infrastructure in the northern part of the parish.

The aim is not to create separate communities on either side of the bypass. It is to use future growth to help Shavington and Gresty function more successfully as one parish: connected, accessible and supported by facilities that benefit both existing and future residents.

Gresty is an important part of Shavington-cum-Gresty Parish, but it currently has relatively limited day-to-day facilities of its own.

It is close to important employment areas, strategic transport routes, the medical centre, secondary school and leisure centre, but the bypass makes movement across the parish more difficult than it should be.

The preferred approach seeks to create a more sustainable future for Gresty by improving access to facilities, strengthening walking, cycling and public-transport links, and ensuring that the benefits of future development are shared across the whole parish. This is about making Gresty a better-connected and more sustainable place to live, rather than allowing it to remain separated from the wider benefits of growth.

No. The Regulation 14 consultation is an important opportunity for residents, businesses, community groups and statutory organisations to comment on the proposed approach.

The Parish Council is consulting because it wants to understand whether the proposed site allocations, infrastructure priorities and policy requirements are the right ones.

Comments will be considered before the Plan is finalised and submitted for independent examination.

The purpose of the preferred approach is not simply to accommodate housing. It is to use planned growth to deliver a more sustainable, better connected and better equipped parish.

The emerging policies are expected to seek a coordinated package of benefits, which may include:

• land and contributions towards a new primary school if required;
• improved access to existing healthcare facilities
• the option of a new neighbourhood community and health hub.
• safer and more direct walking and cycling routes;
• better public-transport connections;
• new sports, recreation and play facilities, including provision for older children and young people;
• new public open space, green infrastructure and recreational routes;
• a new local centre, with opportunities for local shops, services and community uses;
• affordable homes and a wider choice of homes for different stages of life;
• high-quality drainage, landscaping and biodiversity improvements;

The final package will need to be tested through technical evidence, discussions with infrastructure providers and the normal planning process. However, the Plan gives the Parish Council a much stronger basis for seeking these benefits than would be possible through piecemeal speculative applications.

The Parish Council is working with education providers to understand local capacity and future requirements.

The scenario work showed that the northern, western and eastern growth areas could provide sufficient land for a new primary school or other community facility.

A coordinated allocation gives the best opportunity to reserve land and secure the necessary contributions where the education authority confirms that additional capacity is required.

The Plan cannot guarantee the precise timing or form of a school, as this depends on need, funding and decisions by the education authority. However, it can ensure that future development does not prevent the opportunity from being delivered.

The Parish Council recognises that access to healthcare is a major local concern.

The Plan cannot create new GP capacity on its own, but it can require development to contribute towards healthcare infrastructure where this is justified by evidence.

This could include support for improved or expanded provision at the existing medical centre, or land and funding for an additional local health facility where needed.

The Parish Council is continuing to engage with healthcare providers so that the final policies respond to identified local requirements.

Shavington-cum-Gresty has become increasingly car-dependent. The A500 bypass and railway line create barriers between parts of the parish, while many everyday facilities are not always easy to reach on foot or by cycle.

The preferred approach seeks to improve this by requiring development to provide safer, more direct and more attractive walking and cycling connections.

These should link homes with schools, healthcare, leisure facilities, shops, bus stops, employment areas and recreation spaces.

This is particularly important in relation to the A500 bypass. Future development should help improve connections across the parish rather than adding to the separation between Shavington and Gresty.

The intention is not to remove the need for cars altogether. It is to make short local journeys easier without a car, reduce unnecessary traffic through existing residential areas and create a more connected parish. This includes an aspiration to make Crewe Road north of the by-pass a “quiet road” prioritising active travel and public transport and reducing use of this as a through road, encouraging vehicles to instead be routed via Jack Mills Way.

Shavington has important existing facilities, but they are spread across different parts of the parish and do not always provide a convenient focus for day-to-day life.

If you look at the “core” of Shavington, the shops have mostly gone, the doctors surgery and convenience store relocated and the only remaining facilities are the school, village hall and church. This has come about through piecemeal development eroding use of the village centre and creating convenience shops scattered across the parish.

A new local centre could provide space for small-scale shops, services, community uses and potentially local employment opportunities including a new primary school.

It could help reduce the need for short car journeys, support existing businesses and create a stronger community focus as the parish grows.

The intention is not to undermine existing village businesses. It is to ensure that future development supports the services needed by a larger population and creates places where people can meet, shop and access everyday facilities locally.

The preferred approach also recognises that the benefits of growth should be shared across the parish. Improved connections and infrastructure in the north should help ensure that Gresty is not left isolated from the services and opportunities created by future growth.

The Parish Council has heard clearly that more provision is needed, particularly for children, teenagers and young people, as well as for informal recreation and sports pitches.

The preferred approach seeks to secure a range of accessible recreation opportunities rather than relying only on small areas of incidental open space.

This could include play areas, sports pitches or courts, games areas, pump track, an outdoor gym or trim trail, informal recreation space, walking routes, allotments, community orchard, green corridors and places for people of different ages to spend time outdoors.

Larger, planned sites are more able to provide this kind of meaningful provision than small, scattered developments.

The Plan is being supported by a Strategic Environmental Assessment. This will assess the potential effects of the proposed options and site allocations on matters including landscape, biodiversity, heritage, flood risk and climate change.

The intention is not to replace open countryside with development without careful planning. The preferred approach seeks to retain and create meaningful green infrastructure, including landscape buffers, public open space, trees, habitat links, drainage features and new walking routes.

A key aim is to use development to create stronger, more permanent green edges and green corridors, rather than allowing incremental and poorly coordinated erosion of the countryside.

The Green Gap has an important role in protecting the separate identity of settlements and recognising the value of open land between them. However, it is not an absolute barrier to development, and increasing development pressure means that parts of it will continue to be tested through planning applications regardless of whether the Parish Council plans for growth.

The A500 bypass provides a clear, long-term physical boundary between the northern and southern parts of the parish. The preferred approach therefore considers whether carefully planned, landscape-led development can help improve connections between Gresty and Shavington, rather than allowing piecemeal proposals to erode the area without delivering wider benefits.

Any development in this location would need to be designed around the landscape from the outset. It should provide robust green buffers, trees and planting, public open space, habitat corridors, sustainable drainage, recreation routes and safe walking and cycling links. The objective is not to remove the sense of separation, but to replace a vulnerable and broadly drawn gap with stronger, usable and better-managed green infrastructure that protects identity while helping the parish function more successfully as one community.

The scenario work showed that alternatives are limited.

Dispersed growth would not meet the indicative housing requirement or provide the scale needed for major infrastructure. Western growth has uncertain land availability and access arrangements.

Some of the locations with the greatest potential to provide a school, new facilities, sustainable travel links and green infrastructure are within the current Green Gap.

The Parish Council therefore has to make difficult choices. Retaining the Green Gap exactly as it is, may sound straightforward, but it could lead to growth being forced into less sustainable locations or coming forward in the gap anyway (as has already been seen) through unplanned applications with fewer community benefits.

That is one of the main reasons for allocating sites through the Neighbourhood Plan.

The Plan can set locally specific requirements for design, landscaping, drainage, access, open space, walking and cycling links, infrastructure contributions and the protection of green buffers.

It can also require development to come forward comprehensively, so that individual phases do not prevent the wider delivery of roads, schools, open space or community facilities.

Developers would still need to submit planning applications and meet national and local planning requirements. The Neighbourhood Plan would give Cheshire East Council and the Parish Council a clearer policy basis for seeking a high standard of development.

No. Development is likely to come forward in phases over a number of years.

The Plan will seek to ensure that each phase contributes to the wider infrastructure and green-space strategy, rather than allowing early development to take place without delivering the facilities needed to support later phases.

The Parish Council wants new development to provide a mix of homes that better meets local needs, including affordable homes and homes suitable for younger households, families, older residents and people wishing to downsize.

The precise amount and type of affordable housing will be determined through planning policy, evidence of need and development viability.

However, allocating sites through the Plan gives the Parish Council an opportunity to make affordable housing an integral part of the overall strategy rather than an afterthought.

Without a reviewed Neighbourhood Plan, the parish is more exposed to speculative development proposals and has less influence over where housing goes or what it delivers.

A failure to plan does not prevent development pressure. It reduces the ability of the community to secure a coordinated package of infrastructure, facilities, active-travel improvements, recreation space and green buffers.

The review is therefore a proactive attempt to shape change in the best interests of Shavington-cum-Gresty.

The Regulation 14 consultation will provide an opportunity to review the draft Plan, proposed allocations and supporting evidence.

The Parish Council welcomes comments that are specific and constructive. It is particularly helpful to explain:

• what you support;
• what you think should be changed;
• whether any infrastructure, environmental or design matters have been missed; and
• why you think your suggested change would improve the Plan.

All comments received during consultation will be considered before the Plan is finalised.

The preferred approach also recognises that the benefits of growth should be shared across the parish. While a local centre can strengthen Shavington’s facilities, improved connections and infrastructure in the north can help ensure that Gresty is not left isolated from the services and opportunities created by future growth.