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A 'NEW village' of 375 homes, a hotel, pub and restaurant has been approved by planners.

The homes will be built at the former site of Albion Inorganic Chemicals, in Booth Lane, on the A533 towards Moston, near Sandbach.

The proposals, which were granted outline planning permission yesterday, also include a 20-bedroom hotel, pub, health club and a fast food restaurant and should create up to 600 jobs.

Planning officers had recommended the scheme for approval in February, but the application was deferred because of concerns about the safety of the former chemical site and plans for only eight per cent of affordable housing.

But those concerns have since been allayed by applicant Countryside Properties, and Cheshire East Council's strategic planning board approved the plans yesterday with 38 conditions.

Changes to the original application include a doubling of affordable housing to 16 per cent and the promise to build houses on the greenfield areas rather using them for business.

Conservative councillor John Wray said: "I think this is a vast improvement on from the previous application and a very good proposal. Moston Parish Council supports this development because it wants to see something happen rather than the land left derelict."

Vice-chairman, Tory councillor John Hammond, said: "This is a prime example where referral was the right thing to do. We can't afford not to approve this application."

Mark Krassowski, from Walsingham Planning, on behalf of the applicant, said: "We're talking about a development that will take at least 10 years in terms of the final bricks being laid."

Planning chairman, councillor Harold Davenport, also Conservative replied: "I'm somewhat surprised by that and I'm sure others are too."

The applicant has pledged to spend �740,000 improving the road system, including Junction 17 of the M6, and education provision around the site.

But councillor Paul Edwards, leader of the Independent Group, said the applicant was not offering enough money.

He said: "I can't support this application when the contributions are totally inadequate."

Plans to build 248 homes on the former Foden factory site in Sandbach were approved in February. A refused bid for 280 properties on farmland at Abbey Road and Middlewich Road, Sandbach, is currently the subject of a public inquiry.