Further consultation to begin on the Places for Everyone plan

Places for Everyone, the Greater Manchester masterplan for housing, jobs and sustainable growth, is going out for another 8 weeks of consultation.

Inspectors examining the proposals have deemed that the plan would be sound with a number of modifications to it. Views will now be sought specifically on these proposed modifications, but not on the wider strategy of the plan which is considered to be appropriate.

Consultation on these modifications will begin on 11 October, following approval by Bury Council and the other GM districts involved in Places for Everyone.

Places for Everyone is a long-term plan of nine Greater Manchester districts, covering the period up to 2039. It sets out where new homes will be built, where businesses can set up and sustain and create jobs, and the infrastructure that is needed to support these developments.

The main change to the plan that affects Bury is the Inspectors’ view that the majority of the proposed Green Belt additions should not be taken forward. This is because they are not deemed to meet the purposes for Green Belt and a similar view has been taken across the other districts. There have also been some amendments to the wording of policies to provide clarity on certain issues.

The inspectors have concluded that all of Bury’s strategic sites proposed for employment opportunities or housing should remain in the plan.

This means that the Northern Gateway site continues to be identified as a large, nationally significant location for new employment-led development within both Bury and Rochdale.

It also means that, despite the council’s efforts to remove the housing site at Walshaw, this will remain in the plan alongside the other major housing sites at Simister/Bowlee, Elton Reservoir and Seedfield.

Councillor Eamonn O’Brien, leader of Bury Council, said: “It is essential that we have a comprehensive, up-to-date planning framework that will guide development in our borough for many years to come.

“This modified plan retains the significant new employment opportunities, addresses our need to deliver medium to long-term housing sites that will provide quality new homes, including hundreds of affordable homes, and the infrastructure to support new development.

“While we are disappointed that the Inspectors have not proposed to modify the plan further to remove the Walshaw site, the modified plan, on balance, should still be supported as it continues to promote the vast majority of development to brownfield sites across the nine districts, as we have been doing in Bury. Even with Walshaw retained, the plan allows us to protect more Green Belt land that would otherwise be the case if we were not able to off-set some of the Government’s housing targets to other parts of Greater Manchester through the joint plan.”