Middlewich Town Council has sent out a rallying call to residents to turn up in numbers at a planning meeting to fight proposals for a 52 home development.

The application for land to the east and west of Croxton Lane was to have been decided this week but it is not on Wednesday's agenda and a new provisional date has been set for it be considered by the southern planning committee on June 29 – although this could be delayed again.

At the recent meeting of Middlewich Town Council, Cllr Jonathan Parry said the scheme meets all the criteria to be refused and urged residents to let Cheshire East's southern planning committee know their feelings.

"The more people are packing that public gallery, the better the pressure on the councillors, and that's what we need to do," he said.

Middlewich Town Council is objecting to the scheme on the 2.2 hectare site, which includes new vehicular access from Croxton Lane and new open space areas with children's play area.

Cllr Parry said he was concerned about the loss of the lay-by which is used for queuing for the tip and the suitability of Croxton Lane because it is extremely busy at peak times.

"Also we've got to note that the bridge is a single carriageway, and we shouldn't really be having more developments on a road where we've only got a single carriageway bridge," he said.

Regarding the development itself, the acting town council chair said the consultation showed there was a need for one and two bedroom homes.

"So what are they building? Three, four, and five-bed houses, they're ignoring the consultation," he said.

He added: "The current Middlewich infrastructure cannot cope with the current housing and therefore, no more should be built until we've actually got our infrastructure up to scratch.

"It's on a greenfield site. It's on the outskirts of town, it meets all the criteria that it should be rejected and I hope that southern planning will reject it."

Cllr Graham Orme also urged residents to attend the planning meeting when the date is finalised.

He said there were questions about the site's ground stability and contamination and flood risk assessment.

He also raised fears of air quality, odour and contamination.

"There's a lot of things that we want to get across powerfully why you shouldn't be building on that area," he said.

Cllr Sam Corcoran

Earlier in the meeting Cheshire East leader Sam Corcoran had addressed the town council and members of the public and told them Cheshire East now has up-to-date housing policies and a robust five-year housing land supply so could now refuse speculative housing applications.

During the later debate on the Croxton Lane proposal, Cllr Laura Turner said: "We need to highlight what Sam said here tonight."

She said there were a number of applications still pending for Middlewich.

"I think the residents need to be aware of what is in the pipeline. We need to communicate that on our town council page, tell them what might be coming in to draw support, to give them as much advance notice to come and support the objections because we shouldn't really be having to do this," she said.

"As Sam sat there tonight and said, we want no more building for Middlewich and Sandbach because we've had the rough end of the deal."

The town council has said when the meeting date is confirmed for the application, number 21/5436C, it will be posted on its website.