A NEW Volvo dealership is set to be built in Bolton bringing 42 jobs in a £3m boost to the town after the car company got its way with councillors.

Plans for the new car sales showroom and service centre at the former United Utilities site off Manchester Road have now been given the go ahead.

Landowners Monte Blackburn Ltd, part of the Euro Garages group, have also been granted planning permission for a new petrol station and McDonald’s drive-thru restaurant at the Meridian Court site with work now well underway.

But the developer has been accused of making “threats” to the planning committee after it said Volvo would pull the plug on the project if the car company did not get its way with lighting arrangements and opening hours.

Matthew Wyatt, senior planner at PWA Planning, wrote to members of the planning committee on behalf of the applicant before they met last week asking that they remove a condition requiring lights to be kept off overnight.

He also told councillors that Volvo cannot accept opening hours less than 7.30am until 8pm from Monday to Saturday and 10am to 6pm on Sundays.

These requests were repeated when he spoke to councillors at Bolton’s first virtual committee meeting held online via video conference on Thursday.

He said: “The group wants to be located here despite the hit that the car industry has taken over recent months due to the pandemic.

“However, they’ve expressed to me confidence that the site can be made a success only if security measures are implemented. These matters are absolute deal-breakers for Volvo.

“As we’re not proposing massive ugly security fencing around the site, the lighting is essential to deterring crime.

“Volvo will have to walk away, as has been said, if they’re not allowed to implement security measures as there’s no way their stock would be covered by insurers.”

Planning officers had already accepted the requested opening hours for the car sales operation, but said that the service centre should only open until 5pm on weekdays, midday on Saturday and stay closed all of Sunday.

Cllr Nick Peel was “sympathetic” to the request for standard opening hours.

He also recognised the need for a lighting security scheme to deter crime.

But he rebuked the car company for making “threats” to committee members.

He said: “I don’t appreciate threats being made to this committee or this planning authority by Volvo. I don’t care how big a company they are.

“You don’t send emails to members of the committee saying you either do what we tell you to do or we will pull out our multi-million pound investment and take it elsewhere.

“I’m sorry but the world doesn’t work like that and we should take no credence in that whatsoever.”

Cllr Peel also called out the previous site owner for removing trees without permission and asked that a new landscaping scheme aimed to screen the site from Kearsley Drive residents is put in place within six months of completion.

The planning committee unanimously supported Cllr Peel’s amendments allowing for lighting to stay on overnight and opening hours as requested.