Homes can be built on green belt land after Bury council lost an appeal. Town hall planning officers had originally rejected the scheme for up to nine homes off Walmersley’s Bentley Lane as they did not believe enough housing was proposed for the site for it to be an efficient use. They said the plan would not meet density requirements of 35 homes per hectare, offering just 14 per hectare.
Officers acknowledged there were some ‘constraints’ on parts of the site, including trees and the fact the M66 runs alongside it. However, they said they had ‘no evidence’ regarding which areas of the land would not be developable.
Grey belt designation
Officers did not reject the principle of having housing on the green belt land. They felt it met the criteria for ‘grey belt designation’ as the land was neither required to keep towns visually separated nor to ‘check the unrestricted sprawl’ of a large built-up area. As such, they judged the land did not ‘strongly contribute’ to greenbelt purposes. Additionally, they said the site was in a sustainable location and would contribute to unmet housing needs in the borough. This meant development there was considered acceptable.
While the Government’s planning inspectorate agreed with the ‘grey belt’ classification, they rejected the conclusion that the development was too small to be an efficient use of the land. The inspectorate said homes would have to be built away from the M66 to mitigate potential noise impacts, while the steep hill on the site would require either ‘substantial excavation’ or ‘careful design’ to ensure homes could be ‘appropriately accommodated’. Additionally, the inspectorate felt lower density housing was more suitable for the village-like setting and the transition from ‘built-up area to countryside’. It would create a ‘greater sense of openness’, documents stated.
Ultimately, the inspectorate opted to allow the appeal. As the application was for approval in principle only, a further planning application setting out the specifics of the scheme will need to be submitted to and approved by the council.
Other developments in Walmersley
This is not the only application for homes at the edge of Walmersley, with residents saying they feared the village was becoming an ‘ever-expanding sprawl’. Plans for some 350 homes are proposed for the Gin Hall site, also off Walmersley Road, with early plans submitted to Bury council in April. At the time, local people raised concerns about the impact on their peace and quiet and suggested the development might force them to move.
Steve Edgar, 55, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service he thinks it would be difficult to ‘find anybody’ in the area who would be happy about the plans. He added: “There's loads of other areas available for building. There's loads of brownfield sites within Bury area. We looked on the land register and there was something like 12,000 spots available, if places were just redeveloped.
“The other thing is the trees, across the road, they shield loads of noise, they help with like the air pollution and stuff like that, so we think they could get cut down.
“I don't think it's needed. I don't think we actually need more houses here, there's lots of development going across Bury already or in the surrounding areas. It just feels it's totally unnecessary.”
