Petition calling from Over Hulton masts removal 'lost'

The petition was first sent to Bolton Council in September 2023 objecting to plans to put up wooden poles around the Breeze Hill estate in Over Hulton.

But despite 106 people having signed the petition, a recent council meeting heard how the petition had been “lost” at the time and that the authority could not demand their removal.

Assistant director of highways and engineering Dwayne Lowe said: “Unfortunately it did get lost in all the changes around planning that were happening around that time when the petition landed.”

He added: “As soon as we’ve noticed and found it, we’ve pushed it through the forward plan.”

Bolton Council has seen frequent debates about poles (Image: Newsquest)

Mr Lowe had been addressing an executive cabinet member for regeneration meeting, which heard how the poles were classed as “permitted development.”

This means that the council does not have the power to seek the removal of the poles on “visual grounds.”

But several of the attendees said that poles like these appearing across their areas had long been hotly contentious issue.

Cllr Adele Warren, of Breightmet, said: “Any councillor who has had these poles and the streets dug up in their area knows just how upset residents have been about it.”

She added: “I do think the information when they started going in was slow as to whether it was permitted development.”

Cllr Warren said the process had been “really painful.”

Poles had also sparked strong reactions elsewhere around the borough. 

Cllr David Wilkinson, of Westhoughton South, said: “One morning I opened my curtains and thought ‘there’s a mast there’ which literally had not been there the day before and its right at the end of my garden.

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“So, they do appear.”

He added: “I think there are things that residents are learning, particularly in Westhoughton.

“We’ve had one estate which would have had 12 masts on it, never had a mast since it was built in the mid-70s.”
Cllr Wilkinson said that these were now “spearing like wildfire.”

Council cabinet member for regeneration Cllr Akhtar Zaman noted the petition and the legal framework that allows the poles to be put up through permitted development.