King’s School housing decision deferred until 2021

Cheshire East Council’s planning committee have deferred their decision on a proposed housing scheme on the former King’s School site in Macclesfield.

Councillors chose to defer their decision during the last committee meeting of the year to allow developers of the Cumberland Street site to review their proposals.

Plans put forward raised concerns as they included the demolition the school’s cricket pavilion and war memorial. Concerns were also raised about the low percentage of affordable housing proposed for the 115-home scheme. While Cheshire East Council’s planning policy recommends 35 affordable homes to be expected for a development of this size, only five units have been included in the plans. A decision on the Hillcrest Homes development had previously been deferred in January.

According to Cheshire Live, agents on the King’s School development, Avison Young, suggested that increasing the provision of affordable housing on the scheme would make the development financially unviable, given the higher costs of converting the historic buildings. Cheshire East Council also suggested that terraced housing could be considered over detached units to make better use of the limited space available on the site.

The King’s School campus in Macclesfield was sold to housing developers to allow the school to move to a new, £60 million purpose-built campus in Prestbury.

In addition to Hillcrest Homes’ development of the Cumberland Street site, Barratt and David Wilson Homes North West were chosen to by Homes England to build 300 homes on the Fence Avenue campus, and McCarthy & Stone have secured planning permission for an 89-unit retirement community.