MORE than 70 homes could be built on a former factory site.

Developer Miller Homes has submitted plans to Bolton Council for a 78-home estate on the former Greenvale Works site, off Leigh Road, in Westhoughton.

The housing giant wants to build 30 apartments, 26 town houses and 22 detached homes.

Outline planning approval was granted for the former industrial site in 2004, after an application by another developer was referred to the Government's Planning Inspectorate.

The site has brownfield status because of its industrial past, but is within Westhoughton's green belt.

Plans had been opposed by Westhoughton Town Council and community campaigners who said the site should have lost its brownfield status when the factory was demolished.

They argued that the land should have been protected as a green belt site, making it exempt from development.

Westhoughton town councillor David Chadwick, who chairs SWAN (Save Westhoughton Act Now) and the Bolton branch of the Campaign To Protect Rural England, said of the latest application: "We fought the original application and it was a bit vexing that the inspectorate didn't agree with our submission.

"We feel that the site is rightly green belt and therefore should not be open to development. One thing that irritates SWAN is the quantity of sites available for development in Weshtoughton. "The town doesn't have the road infrastructure to take so many new dwellings."

The new plans cover more than 11 acres and include parking and access from Leigh Road. Roads on the site have been designed to slow vehicles down and avoid rat-running.

A spokesman for Miller Homes said: "The Greenvale development site has already received outline planning approval under previous ownership. The new Miller Homes development will reflect the original planning application and bring back into use an area of derelict and disused land."

A decision by Bolton Council is expected by May 25.