Wigan councillor fears precedent set by planning approval for scheme

Coun Vickers, who represents Hindley Green ward for Labour, says he is worried that accepting the developer’s argument that the cost of cleaning up the contaminated land exempted it from honouring the non-housing parts of the scheme, the town hall has left itself wide open to other house-builders’ doing the same thing.

And with several other major projects on similar land in the pipeline, Coun Vickers is worried there will be a “free-for-all”, with communities having large housing developments on their doorsteps with no infrastructure.

A report on the ultimately-successful North Leigh Park bid admitted the loss of employment land came into conflict with the Core Strategy planners accepted bringing businesses to the site was not viable.

Coun Vickers said the application removed much-needed jobs from the area, reduced the amount of section 106 money which offsets the impact of development by £2.2m and also got rid of a health centre which was in the agreement.

Coun Vickers said: “My big concern is that a precedent will have been set creating a free-for-all for developers of every contaminated site, such as South Hindley and South of Atherton, to justify removing everything beneficial to the community, pleading they won’t walk off with a big enough wad of cash from each site.

“Countryside Properties used the cost of having to clean up the land as the reason for removing the community benefits at North Leigh Park. They will still make a profit, but apparently not enough profit, and this application was all about maximising the profit of the developer.

“The developer is being allowed to refuse to contribute over £2.2m in section 106 money, which was to include £1.1m towards education provision in the absence of a new school.

“The education of our children must not be secondary to developers making maximum profit from the site.

“A health centre was promised to the local area in the Core Strategy and in the section 106 agreement.

“The three linked developments – Northleigh, South Hindley and South Atherton - will increase patient numbers to 13,100. The removal of the health centre is morally wrong.”

In a complex and lengthy passage of the report to councillors, officers explored whether keeping the employment land in the North Leigh development was the right thing to do.

The conclusion was that it was permissible to allow Countryside Properties to remove it from the application.

The report said: “Officers’ advice is that there are other factors in the planning balance that weigh heavily in favour of accepting the loss of this employment land, in particular the need to secure early delivery of housing on a major brownfield site to enable a continued pipeline of housing development and reduce future pressure to release greenfield land; the importance of delivering critical new infrastructure at this site; the desirability of securing the remediation of a heavily contaminated brownfield site; and the ability of the development to deliver a mix of new housing, along with high quality public open space and extensive walking and cycling links, in a sustainable location.”

Officers also concluded there are enough medical facilities in the area to allow the health centre to be removed, a decision disputed by Coun Vickers.

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