Billboard protesters try to shame council over new home plan
ACAMPAIGN group took inspiration from an Oscarwinning film to protest a huge new housing development passed by Rochdale council.
Campaigners erected a billboard objecting to plans for 1,000 new homes and a £20 million link road at junction 19 of the M62, calling it the ‘great Rochdale greenbelt giveaway’.
They branded it ‘One billboard in Rochdale’, in a nod to the film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
The billboard was unveiled on Molesworth Street overlooking the council’s headquarters at Number One Riverside.
Campaigners say the council ‘ignored’ the wishes of local people when deciding upon the application, which has now also been given the green light by the Secretary of State.
The billboard has since been removed, but also featured the slogan ‘council of shame’ and listed the names of nine Labour councillors it said voted for the application.
Rochdale council, however, says that the application received seven votes in favour, one against and two abstentions when it was heard at March’s committee meeting.
The authority also says that planning procedures were properly adhered to when deciding the application and branded claims made on the billboard as ‘misleading and inaccurate’.
Organiser Darren Court, who lives in Heywood, says campaigners are now calling for a judicial review of the application. He said: “The greenbelt is a really big buffer between Heywood and Middleton and it’s been protected vigorously by local authority planners for years.
“There isn’t a need for greenbelt development. It’s going to mean a massive amount of congestion, of building, of roadworks and a massive loss of greenbelt.
“When you consider in 2002 Rochdale themselves wanted this link road and ever since have put it on their own agenda, putting it in their own development plan in 2010, only to be rejected by the national inspectorate saying there wasn’t enough benefit for that link road and then low and behold there’s a local planning application by Russell Homes that Rochdale get to decide upon.
“In my opinion, the council have done it in a shoddy way that rode roughshod over people’s interests.”
Steve Rumbelow, chief executive of Rochdale council, said: “This billboard is misleading and inaccurate. When deciding on this application, our planning committee followed proper guid- ance. The council referred this, along with all correspondence received in relation to the application, to the secretary of state, who carefully considered the case and decided not to call the application in.
“This is a clear indication that the government thinks that the council properly considered the application before reaching its decision.”
The billboard has since been removed.