DEFIANT councillors have sent out a determined message on a controversial housing development ahead of a public inquiry.

At a planning control sub-committee, they rejected an application to build more houses on the Maunders homes site off Hospital Road, Bromley Cross.

Bolton Council has given permission for 164 homes on the land.

A previous application to increase that to 172 was rejected and will now be the subject of a public inquiry in November.

Now Maunders have applied to build semi-detached houses which would bring the total number of homes to 181.

Town hall planning experts had recommended councillors to accept the plan because it falls below 200 - the target figure set for the land by the Secretary of State for the Environment in 1994.

And they fear the chances of the public inquiry ruling in the council's favour are very slim.

But Labour Cllr Stuart Murray said: "How do we know that they will not come back with an application for 190 next week?"

And Conservative Cllr Norman Critchley said: "Developers come with one set of figures which we accept and then they keep coming back and going up and up."

Liberal Democrat Cllr David Wilkinson argued that the committee had to be consistent and reject 181 because they had already rejected 172.

He said: "The officers seem to accept the figure of 200 as gospel because the Secretary of State said so.

"But the situation has changed since then and I think we can produce a fair case to argue at a public inquiry."

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