Wigan housing planning proposal causing concern for local residents

Residents are concerned about proposed plans in Haigh

Residents living in Haigh say they have been kept in the dark over plans to build houses on protected land near to their homes.

Wigan Council have received an outline planning application for three new residential units at The Woodlands, which has a tree-preservation order around it.

Adrian Griffin, 47, who lives on the estate, is annoyed by the council’s action.

He said: “It’s unbelievable and just a joke. I didn’t know anything until I looked on the council website. If this goes through then they have side-stepped every single person who could possibly oppose and object on legal grounds.

“If no one had seen this, in two weeks there would’ve been planning permission to remove all these trees and destroy this habitat. There’s a whole ecological environment that they’ve just bypassed.”

The same issue occurred last July, when the council put in a planning application without writing to the residents and informing the tree conservation officer.

Residents united to stop the plans going ahead.

Mr Griffin said: “Our local councillor Lawrence Hunt got involved with a planning expert to prove what they were doing was illegal, so it got withdrawn before it got rejected.

“Over 1,400 people objected to it. Everyone is opposed to it but they have tried to get it back through.

“When I bought my house I was told that no one could build on that land because there is a tree preservation order.

“There is loads of history with the whole place, you can’t even chop a branch off without getting permission.”

Alarm bells started to ring for the Haigh resident once more this week when he came home to discover someone on the land.

“I checked on the website and they had done it again, it is like they’re trying to hide it so no one can object to it so it gets passed through. The new one is for half the amount of houses but the access road is in the exact same place.”

A spokesperson from Wigan Council said: “The application was received and validated on July 5, 2021, upon which time the public consultation period commenced for 21 days.

“However, we do accept all comments received until the point of determination, thus if residents would like to make comments, they can still do so. The most convenient method to comment is through the Planning Portal.”