Macclesfield planning: officers now back 68-bed care home

Cheshire East planning officers are now recommending approval for a 68-bed care home on Green Belt land at Handforth, seven months after they wrote a report on the same site recommending refusal. That report was pulled from the committee agenda in January 2026 rather than voted on. The revised scheme returns to the council’s Northern Planning Committee at 10.30am on Wednesday 19 August, in the Capesthorne Room at Macclesfield Town Hall. (Agenda, Northern Planning Committee, 19 August 2026)

Three applications and one tree preservation order are on the agenda. The two Macclesfield town applications, a conversion of the former Majestic Cinema on Mill Street and the change of use of a closed Park Lane pub to a convenience store, are both recommended for refusal.

The Handforth care home, and what changed since January

The application, 25/2053/FUL by Wrightcare Developments Ltd and Deansgate M5 Ltd, is for a two-storey care home of 68 bed spaces on the site of the former Knowle House on Sagars Road, a private nursing home destroyed by fire and demolished in 1996. The site covers about 1.07 hectares, sits in the Green Belt and the Bollin Valley designated landscape, and is bounded by Dobbin Brook and woodland to the west and south. The application form indicates 70 full-time-equivalent jobs, and 37 parking spaces are proposed. (Officer report, 25/2053/FUL)

The officer report is explicit about the reversal. “A report was previously prepared for committee with a recommendation for refusal in January 2026 but withdrawn from the agenda. Changes have subsequently been made to the scheme to address concerns raised by officers.” Those changes cut the building from 76 beds to 68, moved the building line to avoid tree loss on the southern boundary, added three parking spaces and a fourth accessible bay, reorganised the frontage for pedestrians, and shrank and repositioned the plant compound.

The Green Belt finding has not softened. Officers still conclude the proposal is inappropriate development, that it harms openness, and that this harm carries “substantial weight” against it. The scheme meets the definition of grey belt, but because no affordable housing contribution has been offered it fails the government’s “Golden Rules” in paragraphs 156 and 157 of the National Planning Policy Framework. What has changed is the other side of the balance: officers now judge that the site’s “previously developed form and condition”, the unmet need for residential and specialist dementia care, the council’s housing land supply shortfall and the employment created together amount to the very special circumstances that Green Belt policy demands.

Handforth Town Council strongly recommends refusal, arguing among other things that need for another care home has not been demonstrated, that Sagars Road is narrow and in poor repair, and that the site adjoins Dobbin Brook Clough. Residents objected in three waves: 32 representations to the original scheme, including from the Patients Participation Group for Handforth Health Centre, 12 objections in December 2025 and a further seven in June 2026.

Health capacity is the objection officers have put a number on. The NHS consultee told the council that when a nursing home is built, a GP practice has to “send in a doctor to review the nursing patients 1-2 times a week, resulting in fewer appointments in the surgery”, and that if practices cannot cover it “this will result in those patients having to go to A+E”. The integrated care board identified the need for one extra 16 square metre consulting room at a build cost of £5,273 per square metre. If permission is granted, a section 106 agreement would secure £904 for each bed space towards the local primary care network, which on 68 beds comes to £61,472.

The site has a long history of refusals: housing schemes were turned down in 2001, 2014 and again in April 2021, the last of those dismissed on appeal. Adult Social Care told the case officer that the council promotes a “Home First” strategy and is still updating its accommodation strategy, so “at present there is not sufficient data to formally object to the planning application with regard to identified need”.

The former Majestic Cinema on Mill Street

Application 26/0581/FUL would convert the rear of 91-95 Mill Street, the locally listed building put up in the 1920s as the Majestic Cinema, into 10 one-bedroom apartments on two floors, with a new entrance off Duke Street. It is a resubmission: a near-identical scheme was refused in March 2024 and dismissed on appeal on 9 August 2024. (Officer report, 26/0581/FUL)

Officers accept the benefits, saying the scheme “would bring a vacant unit back into use and would support the vitality of the town centre”, but recommend refusal on three grounds: poor outlook and natural light for future residents, no noise assessment despite the site sitting beside late-licensed premises, and dormer windows that “overly domesticate the building” without the heritage impact assessment the council’s conservation officer asked for. The report goes further than the three reasons, suggesting that given existing noise levels “a residential development is unlikely to be successful within the rear of this building, and an alternative non-residential use should be sought”.

Six letters of objection came from surrounding businesses. They told the council that Dukes Court holds full premises licences permitting trade from 10am until 3am seven days a week, and that the viability of those businesses “is heavily reliant on the absence of nearby residential dwellings”. The application reached committee because Councillor Liz Braithwaite, who represents Macclesfield Central, called it in.

Last Orders on Park Lane

The third application, 25/4532/FUL, would turn the closed Last Orders pub at 116-118 Park Lane into a convenience store with an altered shopfront. Officers recommend refusal on one narrow ground: the sequential test. The site is inside the Macclesfield settlement boundary but outside the town centre boundary and the primary shopping area, so national and local policy require the applicant to show no suitable site is available in the centre first. (Officer report, 25/4532/FUL)

The applicant’s assessment concluded no suitable premises were for sale in the town centre, partly because they want to own rather than lease. Officers found that analysis “does not offer much flexibility, and only offers limited supporting evidence”. Notably, the loss of the pub itself is not the sticking point: because the pub is vacant, no objections were received to its loss and it is not on the council’s list of assets of community value, officers concluded “no significant harm is considered to be caused in this regard”. This application was also called in by Councillor Braithwaite, who pointed to a designated retail area at 51-85 Park Lane “only yards from the application site” with vacant units in it. Macclesfield Town Council echoed her comments.

The Alderley Edge trees

The fourth item asks councillors to confirm a tree preservation order made on 2 April 2026 over Brocklands on Brook Lane, Alderley Edge. The council made it after a case officer’s site visit on 18 March 2026 confirmed that several mature high-canopy trees had recently been removed from the part of the garden where a proposed house was shown on a permission-in-principle application. Officers say the 1875 Ordnance Survey map shows tree cover on the same boundaries. The permission-in-principle application was refused on 22 April 2026 and is now under appeal. The site owner’s arboricultural consultant objected to the order’s area classification; officers recommend confirming it without modification. (TPO report, Brocklands)

What it means for you

An officer recommendation is advice, not a decision. Councillors on the committee can and regularly do vote the other way, which is precisely why the public speaking slot exists.

If you want to speak on any of these items, the deadline is 12 noon on Tuesday 18 August, the day before the meeting. You must say so in writing to Democratic Services at speakingatplanning@cheshireeast.gov.uk. Objectors, supporters, applicants and agents each get up to three minutes; a town or parish council representative gets five. Speakers are advised to arrive 10 to 15 minutes early to register on the door, and no photographs, plans or other presentation aids may be circulated at the meeting. (Protocol for public speaking at planning committees, Cheshire East Council)

Only planning matters count. The Knowle House report notes that objections about how care beds are funded and about the effect on nearby property values “are not material considerations in the planning assessment”, so raising them uses up your three minutes without adding anything the committee can act on. Design, size, layout, residential amenity, highway safety, character of the area, trees and historic buildings all do count.

If you live near any of the three sites and want to follow what happens afterwards, decisions appear on the council’s planning register under the application numbers above. Our Macclesfield planning news page tracks the bigger picture, including the council’s housing land supply position that officers lean on in the Knowle House report, and our Macclesfield house prices page sets out what the local market is doing.

Sources

• Northern Planning Committee agenda, 19 August 2026, Cheshire East Council
• Officer report, 25/2053/FUL, land of the former Knowle House, Sagars Road, Handforth
• Officer report, 26/0581/FUL, The Cave, 91-95 Mill Street, Macclesfield
• Officer report, 25/4532/FUL, Last Orders, 116-118 Park Lane, Macclesfield
• Tree preservation order report, Brocklands, Brook Lane, Alderley Edge
• Protocol for public speaking at Strategic Planning Board and planning committees