RESIDENTS in Cheshire's rural villages have suffered mixed fortunes this week as the avalanche of housing developments continues.

In the past few years the villages of Kelsall, Malpas, Tarvin, Tarporley and Farndon have been inundated with proposals for large-scale housing schemes to be built on rural land after new planning laws came into force last year to create more homes and jobs across the country.

The guidelines focus on a 'presumption in favour of sustainable development' and stipulate brownfield sites should be developed before greenfield sites, with the aim of speeding up the planning approval process.

But residents fear the amount of developments flooding their villages could turn their rural communities into a 'free for all'.  This week there has been mixed results for three villages:

Malpas residents have been left angry after outline plans for 60 homes on land off Tilston Road were unanimously approved by planners.

The development, earmarked to lie next to Malpas's recreation ground, would mean demolishing a number of buildings at West End Poultry Farm and one property known as Tall Trees to provide detached, semi-detached and terraced homes.

More than 30 villagers objected to the plans, citing the busy high street as significant concern, as well as landscape domination.

But area planning manager Jon Sutcliffe told Cheshire West and Chester Council (CWaC)’s strategic planning committee that the shortfall in the borough’s housing supply outweighed policies for development in open countryside, and the plans were approved, subject to a legal agreement involving a £95,000 contribution to secondary education.

Meanwhile, Kelsall residents are fighting the resubmission of Rowland Homes’s proposals for 11 new homes at Willington Lane, which they claim is being ‘railroaded’ by CWaC.

They fear their ‘lovely village’ will become a ‘bland suburb of Chester’ if the plans are given the green light, which they claim go against CWaC’s own regulations, guidance notes and protocols.

But Jon Moorhouse, whose home sits directly next to the proposed development, said attempts to contact CWaC have proved unsuccessful.

“We want dialogue, a process of design diplomacy where the scheme is properly resolved to everybody's satisfaction with a sustainable solution that fits with the Kelsall Landscape and Design Plan, providing needed housing while still giving the developer a profit,” he said.

However, there was some hope for Farndon residents when plans for more than 100 homes to be built on farmland opposite Brewery House, Churton Road, were overturned.

The new-build development would have offered a broad mix of house types ranging from 2-5 bedroom properties.

But angry residents, who had collected a 600-signature petition opposing the Gladman development, argued at a meeting of CWaC’s strategic planning committee that there was no demand for new homes in the area and there had been no proper consultation by the developers.

Councillors agreed permission should be withheld.