POLITICAL parties on Westhoughton Town Council have joined forces to protect land at Lee Hall from developers in the wake of a controversial plan for a massive housing scheme.

Last month a planning application was put in to Bolton Council to build 1,100 homes, industrial and warehouse units on 230 acres of land.

And already there has been a storm of protest with 52 letters of objection sent to the planning department and councillors reporting that their surgeries have been flooded with residents concerned about traffic congestion, the loss of open space and the pressure on local services.

Councillors at last night's Westhoughton planning, finance and general purposes committee were united in their opposition to the idea.

"Just by gut feeling alone we know that the people of Westoughton do not want it," said Cllr Linda Thomas.

"The message we need to send back to the potential developers is that we don't want this. I make no apology for continuing to say it."

Cllr David Wilkinson stressed that the town has had enough of large housing projects.

"People in Westhoughton for the last 15 to 20 years have been complaining about large scale development. It is virtually uncontrolled."

The committee deferred making a formal decision on the planning application until next month to give them time to get the results of an environmental survey being done on the site.

Bolton Council's planning sub-committee is not expected to consider the application until early Spring.

In the meantime the town council is pressing Bolton Council to remove the area of land from the Unitary Development Plan, where it is currently designated for housing and industrial use.

The UDP, Bolton's blueprint for helping determine planning applications in future years, is currently up for consultation and changing the status of the Lee Hall land would make it harder in future for approval to be given to large scale development plans.

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