Cheshire East Council has identified five years worth of housing land with space for almost 10,000 new homes.

It means that it can fight off attempts by developers to build on green belt and other sensitive sites by proving enough housing can be built elsewhere.

It follows a run of successful appeals by house builders which proved the council could not demonstrate it had a five-year housing land supply.

Council leader Michael Jones, pictured, said the new figures showed the council’s determination to protect the countryside from unplanned, unsustainable and unwanted development.

He said: “The latest assessment shows that Cheshire East responded robustly to the government’s call to meet the need for more housing.

“It shows that we have granted numerous planning permissions and there are many more sites now under construction.

“This demonstrates that land is being made available to provide the housing that the borough will need in future, while protecting the countryside and green belt.”

In the autumn both the Secretary of State and a planning inspector upheld appeals for a housing development in Sandbach on the premise the council only had a housing land supply of 7,500.

The rulings prompted some developers to indicate they would appeal council planning refusals.

Since then the council has been poring over planning applications and housing completions to prove it could meet the targets.

Coun Jones added: “We hope that the current rash of speculative planning applications for housing will now start to ebb away and that the development industry will work constructively with us to secure the effective implementation of new Local Plan.”

To keep up with the demands for housing councils have to identify and keep up-to-date a deliverable five year housing land supply.

Cheshire East has identified space for 9,757 homes – the equivalent to almost six years worth – which is 1,446 more than the government target.

This is a crucial part of the Local Plan, which plans potential sites for development until 2030.

Coun Brendan Murphy, who represents Tytherington ward, was cautiously optimistic about the new assessment.

He said: “I welcome the news, but as usual the devil is in the detail and I have to look closely at this.”

The five-year-housing supply report will go before a meeting of the Strategic Planning Board on February 5.