CHESHIRE East Council is to undertake a review of land transactions in the wake of recent police investigations into land deals in Crewe and Middlewich.

In November of last year, the Crown Prosecution Service decided to take no further action with regard to investigations into historical land transactions involving the borough council in Middlewich and Crewe.

Now, the authority's chief executive, Lorraine O'Donnell, has requested a review of land transactions in 2022/23 'to ensure that lessons have been learned from these matters and that appropriate controls are now in place to mitigate the risk of similar issues arising in future'.

At last Thursday's meeting of the audit and governance committee, vice chair James Nicholas asked for a timeline and whether the information from the audit would be provided to the committee.

Head of audit Josie Griffiths replied: "It's just a belt and braces – let's return again to land transactions, make sure that those improvements, those arrangements, those recommendations that we made in previous pieces of work have now held up."

She said once the review was completed it would go to the audit and governance committee.

Cheshire Police undertook seven lengthy investigations into Cheshire East Council when it was under the previous Conservative administration.

These were matters referred to the police by the council in 2015 and included the allegations relating to land transactions at Middlewich and Crewe.

No further action was taken in relation to any of the seven investigations.