Fury as industrial park on greenbelt is approved

Paul Britton

December 10, 2009

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CONTROVERSIAL plans to build an industrial park on the greenbelt site of a sprawling open cast mine have been given the go-ahead.

Furious campaigners say Bolton council’s decision breaks a promise made three years ago. The Cutacre site in Over Hulton, on Bolton’s border with Salford, has become one of Greater Manchester’s longest-running planning sagas.

Campaigners initially lost a fight to stop coal being mined at the 796-acre site more than 20 years ago. Planning permission was granted after a public inquiry with instructions that the site should become a country park once the operation to mine thousands of tonnes of coal had finished.

Bolton council however announced new plans to build a 209-acre ‘employment zone’ there. The plans were scaled back from a 360-acre development after a period of public consultation.

The council said the industrial park was needed to create jobs and boost Bolton’s future economic position, but hundreds of protestors gathered at the town hall last night ahead of a special council meeting. They watched proceedings from the public gallery and via a video link in a separate town hall suite.

Labour and Lib Dem councillors backed the plans, forming a majority against Tory opposition.

The vote went to include the Cutacre development plan in the council’s ‘core strategy’, an economic blueprint mapping out the town’s future for the next 20 years.

In effect, the council argued that ‘exceptional circumstances’ allowed it to reclassify greenbelt land into ‘strategic employment land’.

More than 92 acres of greenbelt land will now be lost to the development.

A public inquiry is likely to be held in the New Year.

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Savage Mandarin, Manchester (10/12/2009 at 11:51)

Rustle, rustle.......

Mad Welsh Scotsman, Cadishead (10/12/2009 at 12:28)

Stop building houses on brownfield sites, which remain unsold for years and build industry on old industrial sites.

Salford council are trying to steal greenbelt land at Barton Airport and have hinted that areas of Little Hulton could be allocated aswell.

When you look at the world from Google earth, all the Green lands you see are there to convert CO2 into Oxygen through photosynthesis, during this age of global awareness, is it beyond these councellors to realise that more green areas turned into concrete, the less chance of oxygen development. And they give advice to us like drive 5 miles less each week to save the planet but are quite happy to allow this to continue relentlessly.

It's one rule for them and another for everyone else

petitevamp, bolton (10/12/2009 at 13:10)

I am all for it to be honest. Jobless totals in and around Bolton are terrible at the moment and if this encourages companies to move here it can only be for the good I say. I have just been made redundant and know how difficult things are at the moment so I say bring it on.

Britt/Canada (10/12/2009 at 13:14)

Currupt & dishonest people are involved in all levels of politics worldwide,these local politicians are hoping to find some kind of personel benifits from this action. it as always baffled me how politicians can be elected on one agenda & then do a complete turn-around once in power just have they did in this case,it should be illegal but this is done throughout the world & voters do little or nothing about it so their is no chance of change from these so called "people's representatives".

Manc Mark, City Centre (10/12/2009 at 13:54)

petitevamp, you've got your wires crossed here. If there aren't enough jobs to fill the sites we've got (which is why you and so many others have been made redundant), why destroy precious Greenbelt to create more sites? There would be a better argument if there were no vacant premises, but there are literally hundreds of vacant sites which don't have businesses to fill them. Why do we need more?

Just another example of big business (UK Coal, owned by Peel Holdings) getting its own way at the expense of communities and the environment.

tiggerluc, somewhere in shaw (10/12/2009 at 14:39)

I think this will become Boltons folly along the lines of Rochdales Kingsway Business park...which at the moment only has three business units occupied at the moment.

Manc Mark, City Centre (10/12/2009 at 15:08)

Quite right tiggerluc - or they could look closer to home at the COMPLETELY EMPTY Gibfield Business Park site just a couple of miles down the road in Atherton.

Rustle, rustle indeed....

peter bowden (11/12/2009 at 17:43)

do we really need another industrial park? there are loads of empty factories in and around the area up for sale or lease which are lying empty concentrate on getting them occupied first.

peter smith (12/12/2009 at 10:44)

Not another, try getting full occupancy on the existing sites before taking even more green belt land.

Edski Vega, Nottingham (13/12/2009 at 21:04)

Once the greenbelt goes, it will never come back..... it will be destitute land of the future.

Imagine if London had decided to turn Hyde Park into housing in the 1960's...... it would be a slum now. This shows there is no long term thinking in Bolton Council. Maybe a few people will get £4.50 an hour jobs for a few years.....

Drew (14/12/2009 at 09:54)

The worst thing about this is the broken promises. Residents have been actively misled by central government, UK Coal and the Council, and this looks more and more like a stitch up. This land was attractive open farmland before they started messing around with it. A cynic might suggest that this whole sorry episode was more about the property development than about the mining...

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