I am writing in order to submit my objections to planning application number 02781/18, regarding the 174 dwellings on land at Bowlands Hey.
I remain concerned that developers are taking advantage of the limited progress Bolton Council, along with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, have made towards producing a Greater Manchester Spatial Framework. As the Planning Inspector has said on numerous occasions, without the Council having a realistic plan for housing sites, we are now in danger of more developments of this kind being granted.
The roads around the Bowlands Hey site are already congested on a regular basis and introducing a large number of extra cars will significantly add to the current problems. The recently approved planning application for 129 houses on the same site will already increase the amount of traffic in the local area and it is unbelievable that Bellway Homes have submitted an application for more houses before the full impact of the current development has been realised.
With many more cars due to be added to our roads by the completion of this development, I have concerns about how this congestion will affect the response time of emergency services when they need to access the busiest roads in the area. Furthermore, the increase in cars will also lead to more emissions and result in more air pollution in the most congested areas.
With regards to health services, it is already difficult to get a doctor’s appointment in the local area and an increase in the local population will make this even harder. As well as this I have deep concerns about education and where the children who live in this development will go to school, especially as there are no plans to create new school places in the Bolton area. Parents will either be forced to send their children to schools with a choice of places - which may be some distance away and require the use of a car, therefore leading to more congestion on our roads - or local schools will be forced to take on an even higher number of pupils, thus further saturating local schools.
Bowlands Hey is green belt land and it is disappointing that houses are being considered on this site. The environment is extremely important and this development will contribute further to the loss of valuable green space, including woodland, and natural wildlife habitats will be destroyed.
This development will have a negative impact on a wide range of matters and therefore I cannot support these plans.
Yours sincerely,
Chris Green MP