ANOTHER housing development which will send the amount of new houses off Warmingham Lane to more than 1,100 has been recommended for approval.

The application to build 235 homes joined onto the Morris Homes development in Warmingham Lane was submitted in 2015 and is now set to be officially approved by Cheshire East Council.

The application will be discussed and voted on by the Strategic Planning Board on August 2, but the council’s planning officer Susan Orrell has recommended that board give it the go-ahead.

Ms Orrell said in her report: “In this case, the development would provide positive planning benefits such as; the provision of market housing on an allocated housing site in the Local Plan Strategy and the significant financial contribution the scheme can make to the Middlewich bypass.

“The delivery of the by-pass is anticipated to deliver significant economic and environmental benefits to Middlewich and are a primary reason for the allocation of the site as a housing site for up to 235 dwellings within the Local Plan Strategy.

“Balanced against these benefits must be the adverse impacts, which in this case would be the loss of open countryside, the lack of any affordable housing provision and the requested education contribution which; based on viability information provided, cannot be delivered whilst also providing the significant financial contribution to the link road.

“In this instance, it is considered that the economic and environmental benefits of the scheme in the form of the financial contribution it will make to the Middlewich Eastern Bypass would outweigh the adverse social impacts to affordable housing and education.”

This development would join others off Warmingham Lane which are either planned or are in the process of being built, including Morris Homes’ 194 houses, Bellway Homes’ 149, Persimmon Homes’ 77, and the 450-home Glebe Farm development off Booth Lane, given approval in 2014.

Middlewich Town Council member, Cllr Jonathan Parry, lives in Warmingham Lane and says the infrastructure cannot cope with the amount of houses being built there.

Cllr Parry said: “The section 106 money from the Morris and Bellway development has done absolutely nothing to compensate the infrastructure. It’s all been used on the town bridge junction, which is all to help cope with the HGVs for ANSA.

“Living on this road, I have noticed the extra traffic already, I dread to think what it will be like when all the rest of these houses get built. The amount of near misses I’ve seen off the roundabout is unbelievable. It’s dangerous and it’s only going to get even worse with the Gladman one.

“If they are going to build them they need to compensate us properly with the infrastructure. They keep saying the bypass is will be done by 2020 but we need to see more action on that.

“Middlewich should have no more development before the bypass is in place because we just can’t cope with it.

“It’s the basics that we want first, like being able to see your doctor and being able to send your children to school in your own town.

“Nobody can get in at Water’s Edge surgery anymore and people are having to send their children to school in Sandbach.

“I just feel that Middlewich is at the bottom of the pile, we’re getting the rough end of the stick all the time. They want to give us more houses and give us nothing in terms of infrastructure in return.

“I do feel for people who buy these houses. I went door knocking on the Morris and Bellway estate and people were saying they didn’t know what they were letting themselves in for when they bought the house there.

“I’m not against housing at all, I’m all for new houses being built, but it’s got to work hand in hand with improved infrastructure, otherwise the town is going to burst.”