I spent today in the appeal over the Tatton cinema site.  The developers were appealing against the Council’s rejection of plans for a small supermarket and a care home.

The short report is that the Inspector heard both sides, had a site visit and will make his decision in around six weeks time.

Now for the slightly longer version.

This was  my first planning appeal – I had a general idea of what to expect, but no more.

We gathered in Committee Room 3 at the Town Hall.  There were five people from the developers’ side, four councillors, a few council officers, and a few other people (including four other Gatley residents – three against the development and one for).

It was a small enough group that we could all sit around one large table, and everyone was able to have their say.

Parts of the meeting got very technical, with the experts from each side throwing around obscure acronyms and quoting bits of the Development Plan we base planning decisions on.

Others were more understandable, and no-one was forced into technical jargon – we were able to make our points in plain English.

We have no idea about the outcome. The Inspector heard our arguments and will now go away and reach his decision.

The issues that were considered were:

• The effect on the living conditions of future residents of a care home, with regard to amenity space and  noise.
• Disabled parking
• Over-development of the site
• The effect on the conservation area
• Traffic
• Viability of the local centre

There was substantial discussion over issues such as the amount of amenity space around the care home (and a rather technical discussion about the definition of “amenity space”), the noise from delivery lorries to a supermarket, parking spaces in front of the Tatton and wider traffic issues with the complexity of the junctions.

If anyone would like to know more detail, I’ll happy to provide it; but for now all we can do is wait.

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