LABOUR is demanding answers after Cheshire East’s chief planning officer appeared to cast doubt in a public meeting on whether or not the council does have a five year housing land supply.

Adrian Fisher, head of strategic and economic planning, made the comment at a meeting of the strategic planning board.

During a debate on the Capricorn Business Park site in Sandbach, Mr Fisher said: “We know that regularly our own five year supply has been tested.  We’ve had a negative appeal decision in Sandbach and we’re waiting for others so we couldn’t even, at best, say our housing land supply is strong.”

There were instant mumblings among councillors sat round the table who were clearly shocked by the comment.

Sandbach councillor Sam Corcoran described it as ‘astounding’.

The Labour councillor, who was at the meeting to speak against the Capricorn application, told the Chronicle afterwards: “I do wonder whether this astounding statement from the man charged with defending our five year housing land supply figures was motivated by a general contempt for the policies for which he is nominally responsible or whether they relate to this site [Capricorn] where there seems to be a determination to get a planning application for houses on the J17 business park site passed no matter what the consequences are.

“The council is spending hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal fees to prove that it does have a five year housing land supply. If our own staff don’t believe that we have a five year housing land supply then something has gone very badly wrong and we need to put it right urgently.”

Cllr Brendan Murphy (Ind) also seemed concerned at the comment.

During a debate on a Sandbach Heath application which came up later at the same meeting, he said: “This morning we heard Mr Fisher cast serious doubt about whether we do have a five year supply, certainly we seem to have some difficulty demonstrating that at these appeal hearings.”

During the same debate about the Sandbach Heath application, Cllr John Hammond (Con) said the council could not rely just on the five year argument when refusing an application.

“In light of what Mr Fisher said this morning about our five-year housing supply we should always be exploring other avenues if we’re going to refuse an application,” said Cllr Hammond.

A Cheshire East spokesman said the council does consider it has a five year supply.

 “Current national planning policy places a great deal of weight on boosting house building where possible," said the spokesman.

 “The board was advised that the council has lost one appeal on its five year housing supply and so was advised to bear this in mind in making its decision.

“The issue of supply appears to be a dominating factor in appeals. Even though the council considers that it does have its five year supply and is awaiting confirmation of this, it was considered too risky to mount this appeal in light of the weight placed by the Planning Inspectorate on building more homes.”