Plans have been submitted to Oldham Council for up to 192 homes at Birshaw Farm in the Beal Valley, a development that includes a new Metrolink stop.
The scheme, put forward by IDPartnership Northern on behalf of Barratt Homes Manchester, is one of the allocated sites under the Greater Manchester Places for Everyone scheme. This long-term plan, covering every borough in the region except Stockport, aims to oversee housebuilding, create jobs, and protect green belt land from unplanned development.
Wider development plans
In the wider plans for the area, around 2,000 new homes could be built alongside new industrial and warehouse space, a local centre, and new access to education facilities. A new road from Ripponden Road to Oldham Road is also planned, as well as a new Metrolink stop at Broadbent Moss.
The new homes would be built about three miles north of Oldham town centre, on greenfield land on the edge of Royton. The development will include wetland landscapes, green spaces, and accessible walking and cycling routes, according to the plans.
Design and community response
Despite the loss of farmland, a design and access statement said the development will keep ‘existing woodland and mature tree groupings to establish a distinctive landscape character,’ with an aim to plant 551 new trees. The new ‘high quality’ homes would have between one and four bedrooms.
The plans propose homes across three parts of the site: 84 to the north, 65 to the west, and 52 to the south, with a new wetland in between. The vision for the masterplan is to ‘create welcoming, well-connected neighbourhoods that feel part of the existing communities in Shaw, Royton, Heyside and Barrowshaw.’
In a planning statement, developers said the project would deliver 100 direct construction jobs and £36.7m of gross value added to the area. If the homes are built, they said an extra £5.5m would be spent by the homes each year, with an extra £500,000 of council tax revenue.
While a planning statement said they had sought people’s views and fed them into the plans, concerns have been raised in comments on Oldham’s planning portal. One person said: “Oldham routinely suffers from immense criticism and negativity in the media, but people outside the borough do not realize that areas like the Beal Valley are beautiful, vibrant places to live.”
They added: “By sacrificing this irreplaceable landscape for developer profit, the council is actively destroying the very assets that make Oldham a desirable place to live. If you take this away, there is no reason for dedicated residents to stay.”
