300 jobs in store at warehouse
TOWN HALL CHIEFS BACK PLAN
PLANS for a huge new warehouse that promises to create 300 jobs has been given the green light by town hall chiefs.
Oldham’s planning committee gave the go-ahead for the construction of a distribution warehouse to the south of Ram Mill and next to Gorse Mill in Chadderton, if a number of conditions are met.
The 4,858 sqm building will be home to a plant hire business, the meeting was told, which will bring hundreds of jobs into the area.
The owners of the nearby Ram Mill had objected over concerns the new development would obstruct the private means of access through the site, would lead to flooding and trees would be lost.
Javi Khanijau, who spoke on the mill owners’ behalf against the plans, said: “The existing vehicle access to Ram Mill is, as proposed, very dangerous.
“There are approximately 50 HGVs coming into the site every single day.
“Access is not safe by any means and not adequate for the safe operation of the site bearing in mind there is an adjacent school and bearing in mind there is an adjacent McDonald’s and supermarket, both of which are very busy.
“We are not in any way against development but we suggest further conditions and further investigation needs to be carried out.”
Doug Hann, the agent for the applicant Cantt Pak, told members it was a ‘major industrial development within one of your primary regeneration areas.’
“It’s the very sort of area where you want to deliver jobs and investment and growth,” he said.
“It will bring a major plant hire business who are inward investment from outside the borough bringing around 300 jobs ranging from office jobs to maintenance on the site so it’s a really significant investment in the borough.”
Conservative Saddleworth South councillor John Hudson said: “This is an area where it’s traditionally been mills and places of employment. We must welcome 300 new jobs because without jobs they’ll be no new houses or anybody will have any income.”
Planning officer Graham Dickman said: “This is a site within a primary employment zone which is deemed suitable for this type of use and is surrounded by uses effectively of a similar type.
“These are genuine concerns we fully appreciate that, but you can only determine applications on material planning considerations and it’s not the role of the planning system to protect one private individual’s interests against another.”
The application was approved by the committee.