Congleton: 454 new homes have been approved by Cheshire East, despite Congleton Town Council's rejection.

Cheshire East Councillors have given thumbs up for a 454-home scheme in Congleton and praised the developer for revising the plans to meet their demands.

Eleven members of Cheshire East's strategic planning board voted in favour of the reserved matters application on land between Manchester Road and Giantswood Lane at Hulme Walfield.

Some councillors thanked the developer for amending the Congleton scheme to meet their requests following a previous deferral.

But Cllr Brendan Murphy (Disley, Real Ind) surprised the rest of the committee when, towards the end of the debate meeting, he said: "I wasn't present at the initial discussion about this application, therefore I intend to abstain on the vote.

"But I do want to make the comment that looking at it initially, at this stage, I think I'm looking at the creation of the centre of slime, slum and crime at some time in the future."

Outline permission for the development had been granted in 2019.

Approval plans were deferred just before new year, leading to this month's approval.

At the meeting, councillors were considering the reserved matters application, which deals with the design and layout of the scheme, after deferring it in December because of concerns over the size of the affordable homes, the location of the affordable housing within the site and to consider whether the estate should have a 20mph zone.

Prior to Cllr Murphy's comments, the council had heard from the developer's representative, Michael Blackhurst, that Redrow had amended the scheme to meet the councillors' requests from the previous meeting.

Committee chair Stewart Gardiner (Knutsford, Con) told Mr Blackhurst: "I think your company's approach to the deferral from the last meeting shows a very grown up response to our requests.

"I hope that other colleagues in other companies within your business adopt a similar approach."

Cllr Steve Hogben (Crewe South, Lab) said: "I'm pleased to see that the national design space standards have been adopted for all of the properties on this site.

"I'm hoping that that indeed will set a precedent for others to imitate and that is something that we should take on board for future applications that we consider."

He added: "In Crewe South and other areas, there are lots of HMOs, houses in multiple occupancy and private rented accommodation, where there are sub-standard room sizes.

"People are living in dreadful conditions."

Most of the debate centred around the 20mph speed limit which, councillors requested and the developer agreed to, but Cheshire East's highways officers said could not be implemented.

The officers said the scheme had been designed for 20mph and argued there wasn't a need for an official 20mph limit with signs.

Cllr Suzie Akers Smith (Congleton West, Ind) who had raised the matter at the planning previous meeting, said: "I'm asking the officers again to reconsider their decision.

"As much as that might be designed to be a 20mph there's no requirement on drivers to stick to that speed limit."

Cllr Barry Burkhill (Handforth, Ind) agreed.

"When you get the applicant saying the whole thing has been designed as 20 miles an hour, I fail to see why we can't go along with that," he said.

The highways officer replied that wasn't the council's current policy.

Construction is set to start later this year.

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