A determined local is spending her spare time challenging the controversial Macclesfield King's School housing plans, and has started a crowdfunding campaign for legal action.

GP Ruth Thompson (50), lives adjacent to the former school campus on Cumberland Street.

While King's first announced the intention to sell the site in 2015, the relocation of students only started in 2020, and the plans have had to be amended over several council meetings to take new plans for the site into a sixth year.

Ruth felt like she was duped when the plans came out in 2019, as they did not represent what residents were told in 2015, in her opinion, of not building on the cricket pitch and keeping a 32 metre boundary from her house as promised.

But following the April 21 Strategic Planning Board, where she was invited to speak at, she feels Councillors were possibly misled before they voted on changes to the plan.

Ruth aims to raise £8,000, and she has already raised £2550 to pay for legal representation to challenge this decision.

"The strategic planning board in my opinion I think were misled. But obviously it is not for me to decide if they were misled - that's for an ombudsman or planning court to decide.

"If you watch the 21st April Strategic Planning Board Meeting at 1 hour 58 minutes, Councillor Redstone very clearly asks a very direct question which is why is there no mention of a design appraisal, what was undertaken and what was the result of it.

"But there was a design appraisal undertaken and that is a missing document that only came out a week before the meeting, and so basically the outcome of the design appraisal was there are six amber issues and could probably be turned green reasonably simply.

"But there was a very substantial red one and the design officer says that that requires substantive changes and the problem is that during the strategic planning board the planning officer doesn't report that.

"We have sent our concerns to the Local Government Ombudsman which is free, but to go to a court, you'd get a better chance of success if you got a solicitor and barrister involved. And they're expensive. So basically it is raising money to pay for specialist legal advice and representation."

So far, 25 Macclesfield supporters have pledged money.

"I think neither King's School or Hillcrest Homes have ever really recognised how important this sites heritage is for the Macclesfield people," she added.

"However, particularly for me it is about affordable housing – it's a clear statement it is not hard. 30% affordable housing target is set by Cheshire East Council.

"Affordable housing is a way for those in key worker jobs on lower wages to get on the property ladder and we know that they are many people in Macclesfield on lower wages. I believe that everyone should be able to have a stable home.

"If you are going to set targets then why set a target to then say 'oh its actually okay 10% is fine' it is not, they've said 30% we need 30%.

"And to put that in people context that's 24 people who potentially won't get an affordable home. Because it is 12 homes and it should've been 36 homes.

"Hillcrest Homes can meet the affordable housing provision and the land would be worth 1.3 million pounds – it's what's called residualized land value.

"The problem is they've paid too much - they've paid £2.3 million for the site - so they are saying 'oh we can't afford it because we've paid 2.3 million and we would only be making 1.3 million pounds', but that's not our problem."

Despite this, Ruth respects the need for housing and supports redevelopment. But disagrees with the housing density, the impact on heritage and the reduced affordable housing provision

This is what she wants for the future of the site:

"I'd like to see a less dense site. You can get the same amount of homes AND advantages like access to the site AND, securing a future for the Listed buildings, I think you can get all of those benefits without such a dense overdeveloped site," she concluded.

"What I'd really like to see is a much more open and transparent process where Councillors on strategic planning boards have been given properly all the information they need to make the decision.

"Obviously that's the democratic process that we live in but I just think that the councillors on the boards making the decisions didn't have all the information so it doesn't feel like they were transparent decisions so that's what I would like."

Cheshire East Council and Hillcrest Homes have been contacted for comment.

Ruth is looking for people who may have wanted to buy an affordable home on this site so that she can take this aspect of the decision to the Local Government Ombudsman.

You can contact her on [email protected].

You can contribute to the Crowdjustice campaign, or find out further information here.

We reported on the changes approved to the King's School housing development last month.

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