Plans to convert Bucklow Hill pub for housing deferred again

PH Holdings and Premier Inn want to partly demolish some of the buildings on the Chester Road site and convert the older part of the pub and adjacent building to the north for residential use.

The scheme was deferred at February’s meeting of Cheshire East’s northern planning committee for more information about how the property was marketed.

It was deferred again on Wednesday (March 23) after the committee learned from an objector’s representative that planning guidelines from Natural England had changed regarding Ramsar sites, which are wetland sites of international importance.

This application site is close to Rostherne Mere which is a Ramsar site.

The council’s planning officers, who recommended the housing application be approved, said this guideline change could be addressed by the head of planning under delegated authority once the scheme had the go ahead.

But committee members said they were unhappy approving it without all the relevant information and deferred the application by six votes to five.

The change in planning guidelines was brought to the committee’s attention by Rob Pattinson, who was representing objectors Jo and David Beech.

Their £1m offer to buy the Swan this month and reopen it as a pub and community hub was refused.

Mr Pattinson said his clients had commissioned experts to look at the Swan marketing and they had said ‘it did not make any attempt to attract purchasers interested in the existing use of the property’.

He then said a decision should be paused anyway because of the change in planning guidance regarding Ramsar sites.

Mobberley ward councillor Charlotte Leach, speaking as a visiting member, had urged the committee to approve the housing application.

Cllr Charlotte Leach

She said it was ‘a carefully thought out proposal which has been shaped through engagement with local stakeholders and the local community’.

“Since the application has been submitted, to my knowledge, I have not received a single piece of correspondence from a resident in my ward objecting to the application,” said Cllr Leach.

But Mere parish councillor Richard Finch disputed this and said 60 local residents had supported an application seeking to make the Swan an asset of community value (ACV).

Developer’s agent John Suckley insisted the Swan had been marketed properly for two and a half years.

“The fact of the matter is there were no offers during that marketing period,” he said.

Knutsford councillor Stewart Gardiner said: “The hospitality industry was on its knees during the pandemic so the likelihood of any organisation, whether that’s a big chain or individuals, thinking of investing in something in the hospitality industry during those two years of Covid is likely to be less than nil.”

Cllr Stewart Gardiner

Several councillors initially wanted to defer the planning application until the council had determined the ACV application.

But planning officer Paul Wakefield said an ACV merely provided an opportunity for the community to buy the site but the site was not for sale.

After officers looked into the legality of deferring the application regarding the ACV application, the committee was told that was not a valid planning reason, but the Ramsar concern was.

It was deferred for more information to be obtained about the Ramsar implications.