Cheshire East would be 'discriminating' if it approved a 454-home scheme for Congleton where the affordable homes were so much smaller than the market sale houses, a councillor said.

Outline permission had already been granted in 2019 for the development on the land between Manchester Road and Giantswood Lane.

But on Wednesday (December 22) the council's strategic planning board deferred the reserved matters application which dealt with the design and layout of the scheme.

Cllr Barry Burkhill (Handforth, Ind), said: "When you've got a situation where the three-bedroom rented is smaller than the two-bedroom for sale, that is discrimination, there's no doubt about it.

"You're discriminating against those who are renting, maybe who can't afford to buy. That is not fair and it's not on. We must not go down that kind of road in Cheshire East."

The application, from Redrow Homes, was for a mix of homes ranging from one-bed apartments to five-bedroom houses.

The board was told Redrow was only providing 17.5 per cent affordable housing as it had already been agreed at the outline application stage that it would pay a contribution of £15,000 per property towards the Congleton Relief Road.

While many councillors said they were broadly in favour of the reserved matters scheme, concerns were raised about the size of the affordable homes and the size of some of the rooms in them.

Planning officer Adrian Crowther told councillors: "Our housing officer's looked at all of these things and he has raised no objection to the room sizes in any of these properties."

But some councillors still weren't happy.

Acting committee chair Stewart Gardiner (Knutsford, Con) said: "The two-bedroom purchase house at 980 square feet is 75 square feet bigger than the three-bedroom house that you'd be renting if you are looking at affordable housing, so that just shows where the disparity is in this system." He also criticised the creation of two pockets of backland development which, he said, 'is not considered to be good practice if you're trying to create something in an existing layout, it certainly shouldn't be encouraged in a new layout, and those are in the middle of the site'. And he wasn't happy that the affordable housing wasn't pepper-potted, in his view. Cllr Steve Hogben (Crewe South, Lab) asked if the room sizes met national standards. "That's the key question," said Cllr Hogben. "People are entitled to have a reasonable amount of living space and space for work too." Several times during the debate ward councillor Suzie Akers Smith (Ind) had asked for a 20mph speed limit to be imposed on the development, adding that residents nearby had asked her for that on their estates. "Can you ask that this be 20mph limit from the outset, because they'll [new residents] only come back to me in two or three years' time, if I was re-elected, to make it 20mph speed limit and it would make it a much more liveable community, which is what we're trying to create," she said. Highways officer Paul Hurdus said: "These are designed to ensure that speeds generally don't go in excess of 20mph." Head of planning David Malcolm added if there were requests for 20mph that would have to be dealt with at a future date. Cllr Gardiner proposed the application be deferred to ensure the housing sizes for the affordable units were in accordance with national standards, to look at the disparity between property sizes 'and to ask the housing officer to look at those issues and specifically say whether they are or are not acceptable'. He added: "We'd also like to find a way of accommodating Cllr Akers Smith's requests regarding trying to facilitate some form of 20mph speed limit." Five councillors voted in favour of deferral and four abstained. Congleton: Do you support the plans for almost 500 new homes? You can read more about the site - which has space for a school and retail units - here. Don't miss out on Congleton's latest and greatest news. Have you signed up to the weekly Congleton Nub News newsletter? 3560 of you lovely people have signed up already. Simply enter your email address into the shaded box below. Free from pop-up ads, or unwanted surveys, Congleton Nub News is a quality online newspaper which produces 15-25 stories a week for our town. You can also find us on Facebook or Twitter.