MIDDLEWICH residents will soon get a second chance to have their say on ambitious plans to transform land by the Trent and Mersey Canal.
Cllr Toni Fox, cabinet member for planning at Cheshire East Council, is set to give the green light for a six-week consultation on the second draft of the Brooks Lane Development Framework.
It comes almost a year after residents took part in the first round of consultation for the masterplan – and CEC has made a number of tweaks to the original based on the feedback it received.
The masterplan says: “The site provides an exciting opportunity to deliver an attractive mixed-use development comprising new homes, leisure, community facilities, a potential new train station and a marina.
“The transformation from industrial uses to a new mixed-use community could regenerate the canal-side, enhance the vitality of the town centre and provide significant benefits to the Middlewich community.”
Proposals in the masterplan include around 200 new homes to be built in the near future plus the ‘potential to achieve additional residential development in the longer term’.
A 20-berth marina is also included, along with land earmarked for a train station and a car park to go with it.
Middlewich Community Church would be retained, along with the bowling green, while CEC proposes restoring Murgatroyd’s Brine Works as part of the scheme.
Around 7.7 hectares of employment land would also be enhanced in the area and some commercial sites could be included – provided they would not take business away from the town centre.
However, CEC is facing a race against the clock to get the masterplan approved, with developer Intertechnic still waiting for an answer on its second planning application for the site after two years.
Cllr Mike Hunter, Labour CEC member for Middlewich, told Wednesday’s strategic planning board meeting: “This is a document which concerns Middlewich and there are a number of elements to this document that I do not agree with.
“We have a planning application from Intertechnic on this and they are threatening to go for non-determination.
“They are waiting for this document, and they say that this document has been too long in the making.”
Intertechnic wants to build a 12-berth marina, 137 homes, plus shops and cafes on land at the Brooks Lane Industrial Estate.
The developer’s first application was rejected by CEC in June 2017 because the council said it needed to approve the masterplan first, and the council wants that resolved before it decides on the second bid.
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CEC will confirm further details on the masterplan consultation once Cllr Fox has given it the green light.
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