After ten years of waiting, the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework has now been passed by Bolton Council. The devolution of house building and industrial development was supposed to enable the ten GM boroughs to protect green spaces whilst marrying up new build with new GP surgeries, school places and transport infrastructure.
Just as I feared, swathes of land have been allocated to housing and industry but nothing has been said about upgrading access to GP surgeries or providing more school places. Transport links have even been downgraded.
Bolton’s Labour leadership had the opportunity of setting out a positive vision for the borough but it has ended in another failure. After ten years and the publication of the third version of the project, the Westhoughton bypass has now been downgraded from being a commitment to merely a wish to save some land for it “where practicable”.
With so much land being ring fenced for industrial development nearby, Labour have committed to increasing car and HGV traffic on our already congested roads.
When Labour attempted to impose a traffic charging zone on the whole of the GM admin area, they claimed that it was about protecting our health. This new plan shows how little commitment they really had to clean air and the environment.
Labour cannot even get the developers to live up to their contracts on existing developments.
The area around the Chequerbent Roundabout has suffered from congestion for many years which is why I have campaigned for a by-pass to be built. Bolton Council allowed the ‘Bluebell Walk’ development to go ahead but made the developer agree to putting in a link road between the roundabout to Platt Lane which would ease some of the congestion.
I wrote to the council to complain that the through road had not been opened up and they wrote back to excuse the developer saying that they will not compel the developer to open up the road but will amend the agreement so the “developer is no longer in breach of the planning permission.”
Just as with Asons and NCP, we know whose side Labour is on.
This article was originally published in the Bolton News on 13th April 2024: https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/news/24234768.chris-green-mp-developmen…
