Bolton Council agrees motions on development and green belt

This comes after Bolton Council passed two motions calling for the authority to do more to protect green belt land and to look closely the public funding going to town centre sites.

The motions were put by Cllr John Walsh, of Astley Bridge, who warned that the government’s new target of 1,300 new houses being built every year in Bolton could put land at risk.

Cllr Walsh said: “Since July we’ve had a plethora of statements and press releases that the government will indeed increase housebuilding targets and will take over planning controls from councils which fail to meet their targets.

“The government will force council therefore to meet those higher targets.”

Moor Lane is another site that will be scrutinised (Image: Newsquest)

He added: “If we’re worried about what planning inspectors have been saying in recent years, its nothing compared to what might come out if you read the detail.”

Conservative Cllr Walsh put two motions to what turned out to be a long-running debate at a full meeting of Bolton Council.

The first called on the ruling Labour councillors to reaffirm the authority’s protection of greenbelt land and condemned their “failure” to allay public concerns about this.

The second called on a council policy development group to consider the risk posed to Bolton greenbelt land if the government does in fact pursue its target of 1,300 new homes a year.

Cllr Walsh argued that this could come about if greenbelt land was reclassified as “grey belt” normally meaning areas like car parks and garages.

The motion also called on the group to consider the “abnormal costs” of developing brownfield land by reviewing a series of schemes around the borough.

These have included the Horwich Loco Works, Central Street, Moor Lane, Farnworth Town Centre, Church Wharf, and Trinity Quarter schemes.

The motion called on the council to look at the level of funding from sources like the Government's Brownfield Land Fund, Towns Fund and other agencies.

It also called on the council to press the government for the necessary funding to prevent housing targets causing Bolton to lose greenbelt land.

Cllr Walsh's motions were supported by Conservative Cllr Toby Hewitt, also of Astley Bridge.

He said: "We should begin as we mean to go on in this chamber tonight by sending out a message that we support these motions and making it clear from the the outset that we are happy with our definition of green belt in this borough."

But Labour’s Cllr Martin Donaghy, of Tonge with the Haulgh, said that back in 2017 his colleague Cllr Linda Thomas had “gone into the lion’s den” to improve Bolton’s green belt.

Cllr Donaghy said as an example that this had added Stocks Park in Horwich to the borough’s protected land.

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He said: “The rest of the Manchester authorities said we’ll take the strain, we’ll help Bolton, we will allow you to increase your green belt footprint.”

Labour’s Cllr Akhtar Zaman, of Queens Park and Central said that the motions did not present “the real picture” which could “potentially mislead the public.”

He said: “It would not be wrong to say that we as a country are facing a housing crisis and the last government did not do enough to address it.”

He added: “The council has and will continue to protect green belt land within the borough in line with national planning policy and our own planning policy set out in the core strategy.”

The first motion was passed by 28 votes to 24 while the second was passed unanimously.