Cheshire East Councillor defends £50k room hire instead of waiting to use Macclesfield Town Hall
By Belinda Ryan - Local Democracy Reporter
14th Mar 2023 | Local News
A Cheshire East councillor has said if the council hadn't paid £50,000 to hire rooms at Crewe Hall for a public inquiry it could have cost £1m to delay proceedings to wait for another suitable venue.
As previously reported by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), Cheshire East paid £49,696 to hire rooms at Crewe Hall Hotel for a two week public inquiry for the Middlewich Bypass – this included £1,980 for lunch for the planning inspector and legal experts.
Some members of Cheshire East's audit and governance committee had questioned why none of the council's own buildings – particularly Macclesfield Town Hall – could not have been used for the inquiry.
Officers stressed the requirements – which included 'a large public room must be available with comms facilities for a remote hearing, plus no less than nine separate private rooms that do not have public access and can be locked'' were dictated by the planning inspectorate.
A report detailing why Crewe Hall was booked also states other venues – including Macclesfield Hall – were not available for the two week period allocated for the inquiry.
The report said any delay to the timetable 'will cost many millions of pounds in programme delay for the scheme due to construction cost inflation' and 'a commitment to Crewe Hall was needed quickly as alternative venues were not available for the dates of the inquiry'.
Crewe councillor Marilyn Houston (Lab) has now explained further.
"Delaying the public inquiry would have cost far, far, more [than the £50,000 for Crewe Hall]," Cllr Houston told the LDRS. "In the realm of £500k to possibly even a million."
She said this was because the council has to book public inquiries when the inspector is available and the planning inspectorate sets the requirements for rooms and facilities necessary.
Cllr Houston said no council facility that could meet the needs of the inspectorate was available at short notice and construction inflation was running at around 20 per cent time, which was adding £250,000 to the cost of the project weekly.
"My maths says that a delay of only two days would have surpassed the amount that the rooms cost, so they were better value than waiting for a free room," she said.
Cheshire East Council has been contacted for comment by Macclesfield Nub News regarding the assertion that they could use Macclesfield Town Hall for free.
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