Bulldozers bring an end to 23-year planning row
A 23-YEAR planning debacle has ended in rubble.
Amongst the bricks, shrouded in winter mist, are broken columns of elegant stone work.
They are the remains of a once handsome building tucked away off Pinfold Lane, Whitefield.
Until recently the damaged south facade of the former Georgian, Whitefield town hall, still stood.
Until late last year metal fencing surrounded it and trees overhung the redbrick ruin.
But, as reported in the M.E.N. in November, a tangle of bushes, trees, and a hedgerow which hid it from the road were cleared and tons of stone laid as a foundation for an impressive new driveway to the former Whitefield House.
The facade was left standing as developers had said they would incorporate it into plans for a care home, for which planning permission has been granted. But it has now been flattened – 17 years after the council saved it from the bulldozer.
A spokesman for Bury council said of the developers: “They do have permission for this. They wanted to keep the facade originally but it is apparently rotten.”
By 2017 the site had been the subject of ten planning applications since October 1994, when permission was granted to fit metal grills and roller shuts to its doors and windows.
The building dated back to 1805, and was built by Edward Barlow, a nankeen cloth manufacturer. He named it ‘Green Hill.’
In 1857 Alfred Grundy, a solicitor bought it and renamed it ‘Underley.’
It was later owned by Samuel Walker, a Radcliffe ironmonger and chairman of the Radcliffe Urban District Council.
In 1933 it was purchased by Whitefield council from George Stonestreet for £2,450, and until 1974 it was Whitefield Town Hall.
After local government re-organisation in 1974 it became Bury council’s engineering department HQ until 1985.