Increasing the amount of affordable housing and making electric car chargers mandatory are some of the changes proposed for big housing developments in Macclesfield.

As well as the above, accommodation for the elderly and climate change top the key features of the final draft of Cheshire East Council's housing supplementary planning document, ready for public consultation.

The draft is now available for comments from residents and all interested parties, prior to its adoption.

It provides more guidance on three policies within the Local Plan Strategy, which sets out the overall vision and planning framework for development in the borough.

The policies refer to the 'residential mix' of developments. These are intended to ensure that supported housing and accommodation for the elderly is available and that there continues to be the right provision for affordable homes, including in rural areas.

Cheshire East Council believe climate change should also be considered when submitting a planning application, according to the planning guide.

Design, layout, low greenhouse gas emissions and strong energy ratings should all figure prominently in any new scheme.

Another change is that in 'Major' housing schemes of ten or more homes (or a site area of 0.5 hectares or more), they 'should provide on-site electric vehicle charging'.

This statement is particularly exciting to Macclesfield Nub News and their readers, as we have our own section dedicated to electric cars.

The release of the document and the key recommendations comes at an awkward time for the council which oversees 11 towns including Macclesfield.

Macclesfield is flooded as we are writing this, and is an occurrence which will only increase with climate change. But the word flood is only mentioned twice in the entire 56 page document.

Mainly in the sentence "Development proposals should also integrate measures for sustainable water management, reduce flood risk and avoid an adverse impact on water quality and quantity in the borough."

On top of this, controversy continues over the removal of a peat bog on the Chelford Road site of 157 new Macclesfield homes, which would effectively remove natural flood protection for the new builds.

As this is a public consultation, it is up to you, the Macclesfield reader, to sound the alarm if these future housing requirements go 'far enough' in addressing the issues raised by the unitary authority.

In juxtaposition to the document, the desire to have a higher affordable housing quota than Westminster advises is contradicted by one of Macclesfield's most controversial housing developments.

The Cumberland Street plans for 121 homes in the centre of Macc have not followed central government's affordable housing guidelines.

National guidance suggests a minimum of 30% on-site affordable housing should be in all residential developments providing 11 dwellings or more. The document for which you can now respond to makes reference to this.

But the housing development on the old Macclesfield King's School site approved in the first half of this year, features less than a third of this affordable housing quota. Not utilising the very guidance they are hoping to better.

Just 9.91% or 12 of the 121 new homes on the site of the old school will be classed as 'affordable', as Macclesfield Nub News previously reported on.

In a further headache for the council and housing, planning application backlogs are facing a record high, with claims of under-staffing, but it is hoped the ratification of this plan will not distract from the lengthy planning wait-times in our town.

You can view and respond to the 'Final Draft HousingSPD' by finding it at the top of this webpage.

Councillor Mick Warren, Cheshire East Council's chair of environment and communities, said: "While the supplementary planning document (SPD) is not part of our statutory development plan, it is a recognised way of introducing additional planning guidance, which should be taken into account when determining a planning application, or an appeal against a planning decision." The final draft housing SPD is accompanied by a report summarising the responses received during an earlier consultation and explains how they have been taken into account in preparing the final document. Cllr Warren added: "By providing clear guidance up front about our policy expectations, we wish to support developers and property owners when making relevant planning applications, as well as support the council in determining these applications." The Labour-Independent council may lean to increasing the amount of affordable housing quote, as point 7.10 of the document states: "The council's initial preference, based on current evidence on tenure, is for a mix of 65% affordable (or social) rent housing and 35% (intermediate affordable housing (paragraph 12.48 of the LPS). The council will, however, seek the balance of housing that best meets local needs and the characteristics of the site. But acknowledged "There will be occasions where meeting the affordable housing tenure on residential sites would not result in a 'round' number of dwellings. "In this situation, when determining the 65/35% tenure split, the council will round up or down the number of units to the nearest whole number." All comments should be received by the council by 22 December. If you'd prefer not to submit your opinion online, comments can also be posted to Strategic Planning (Westfields), c/o Municipal Buildings, Earle Street, Crewe CW1 2BJ. Following consultation, the council will carefully consider all comments received to the final draft SPD and accompanying consultation report before deciding whether any further amendments to the SPD are needed before the SPD is considered for adoption. See also: Macclesfield identified as 'Local Flood Risk Area' with over 2000 at significant risk. [I]Macclesfield: Have you signed up for our Friday weekly newsletter containing each week's top 10 Macclesfield news stories, and one FREE exclusive article? 970 of you have signed up already. Simply enter your email address into the shaded box below. Free from pop-up ads, or unwanted surveys, Macclesfield Nub News is a quality online newspaper which produces 25-30 stories a week for our town. As well as Twitter, you can also find us on Facebook.