Homes plan rethink
PROPOSALS to develop on green belt areas south of Rossendale have gone back to the drawing board.
Greater Manchester’s new mayor Andy Burnham has set about radically rewriting the region’s controversial green belt masterplan – which had proposed 100 new homes in Holcombe Brook and an industrial development to the east of Summerseat.
Mr Burnham has promised a major shift in the way the region approaches housing and has appointed Salford’s mayor, Paul Dennett, to oversee the rewrite of the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework (GMSF).
The draft masterplan would have changed the green belt boundary around the conurbation in order to allow for new housing over the next two decades.
But when it was unveiled last year, communities affected by the proposals reacted with outrage – and Mr Burnham promised to ‘radically’ alter it as a result. Mr Burnham said he was ‘signalling a change’ in the region’s ●● Andy Burnham housing policy. He said: “I will listen to communities and oversee a radical rewrite of the GMSF. I will keep those high ambitions for the homes and jobs we need but there will be a substantial reduction in the loss of green belt.
“Our plan will build the right kind of homes in the right places.”
Ramsbottom councillor Ian Bevan welcomed the rethink – and said he hoped to meet with the new mayor to discuss how Ramsbottom could feature in the new plans.
He said: “We are grateful that Ramsbottom wasn’t considered in the initial draft of the GMSF when it came out and we hope it will still be the case when the proposals are reviewed.
“But some sites around Holcombe and Summerseat were listed, with one earmarked for a housing development and a big industrial estate and that was something that we opposed and made representations against.
“I was also concerned that if some of the bigger sites that were highlighted in the GMSF didn’t go through they would look again at smaller sites, such as the ones put forward in Ramsbottom.”
Coun Bevan added: “This area does need affordable housing – I know that the number of people renting and moving into the area has gone up significantly in the last couple of years, but my plea to Andy Burnham is to protect the green belt and to push development in the brown belt sites.”
Mr Dennett said: “Spatial Framework also provides a unique opportunity within Greater Manchester to provide much-needed homes our residents can afford, connect and strategically integrate the city-region, while giving all our residents the best chance of building stable homes, providing for jobs and opportunities, and creating communities we can all be proud of.” ●● JJO’s Andrew Filipowicz with the trophy