A local MP has raised planning problems that blight his constituency in a House of Commons debate.
Speaking during last night’s Second Reading of the Neighbourhood Planning Bill, MP for Bolton West Chris Green said that planning issues were by far the most common issue raised by constituents, with one recent email capturing local feelings: “Enough housing, infrastructure required.”
The Bill includes measures to further strengthen neighbourhood planning and to give more power to local people in the planning process. The MP welcomed proposals to increase transparency, requiring local planning authorities to publish their policies for giving advice and assistance to people preparing or updating neighbourhood plans.
He said during the debate:
“Planning failures—everything from the daily commute, to people’s children having access to a good local school, to the place where they live having a sense of community— have the greatest impact on peoples’ lives. When building new houses, the focus has too often been on providing new dwellings for newcomers, with an apparent disregard for existing residents.
“Road networks designed for a village have to cope with the traffic of a town, plus the additional out-of-town traffic thundering through narrow streets. As the demand for housing increases, we must recognise and respond to the challenges that additional housing brings for existing residents, rather than focusing all our attention on creating new residents.”
The MP went on to describe Bolton Council’s failure to finish the A5225 after Wigan Council completed their own section as “a glaring example of the failure of planning.” At a roundabout in Atherton, which falls under Bolton West, massive concrete blocks can be seen where the A5225 should have been continued.
The MP added:
“I am currently running a petition, to be presented to Bolton Council, against the proposed 1,700 houses at the Chequerbent roundabout, and it has been signed by over 1,000 local people.
“This development, and those proposed for Hulton and south of Atherton, will add many thousands of people and cars to the local area. Local opinion is that the council, rather than seeking to fulfil a house building quota, should be playing catch-up for the decades of missing infrastructure.
“My constituency is now part of the commuter belt for Manchester, a work destination for other commuters and a place where people further out in Lancashire use the local railway stations for park and ride. That all adds pressures on the local road and rail network that do not seem to have been addressed when each individual housing project is designed and built.
“The pace of development for transport is lacking considerably in Bolton West. For example, I receive many complaints about the rail service and how capacity can be increased on the line, which takes people from Blackrod, Horwich and Lostock en route to Bolton and Manchester. Although I welcome the electrification that will add 281 new carriages to the local route, with an increased service of 12% by 2019, in the longer term that will not reduce the pressure on services due to an increased population resulting from the additional housing.
“At present people have little faith that their council has the bigger picture in mind when several smaller developments are approved without thought to local amenities, while a development that is as large as the sum of those smaller developments would require accompanying infrastructure support. There is much more to be done to give communities—not councils—more rights in the planning process.”
For the full text of the debate, visit: https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2016-10-10a.77.0&s=speaker%3A25359#g102.0