Questions and Answers - 2024

Question Reference Number 864683

The Local Plan for Leigh up to 2040 provides for approximately 972 houses per annum to be built in Wigan Borough. Whilst the plan has not yet been formally agreed the figure of 972 per annum is part of Greater Manchester Places for Everyone which has taken account of the protracted housing needs of Greater Manchester up to 2040. Presumably then it has been researched and validated. My questions are therefore:

To what extent do the recent approved applications for 37 houses behind Alderley Lane Leigh, 146 houses at the former site of Moss Bank nurseries Leigh and 1050 homes at Mosley Common form part of the Places for Everyone plan for 972 houses PER YEAR in THE WHOLE of Wigan Borough
In addition, the Local Plan contains a requirement for affordable homes to be part of any development yet neither the Alderley Lane application nor the Moss Bank nurseries application include provision for the 25% of affordable homes specified by the Council. I m not sure the Mosley Common development meets that requirement in full either.
The Local Plan also incudes a requirement that public transport and transport infrastructure be in place or improved sufficiently to sustain housing developments. This is certainly NOT the case in Leigh. I understand that the Wigan Council Planning Committee think that Wigan is the centre of the universe and that provided provision is made for people to travel locally or from Leigh to Wigan that this requirement is fulfilled. Let me therefore apprise and educate you on a number of facts concerning the working population of Leigh.

Despite your attempts to deprive us of decent educational opportunities by ensuring the best opportunities are outside of Leigh, some people in this town refuse to be badged with the 'poor and deprived' that you are so proud of and whom you disproportionately support. Some people do not want to part of a town or Borough that wears poverty and deprivation like a badge of honour and uses it shamelessly as a means to extract extra taxpayer funding from Westminster ( Wigan Council recently given £400,000 plus, to deal with the perpetual and growing problem of NEETS in the Borough). They want something better. They therefore make the most of the educational opportunities that are available, get themselves some qualifications and find themselves reasonable paid employment outside of Wigan Borough (because, lets face it, there's little of it in Wigan Borough) in places as far away as Manchester, Liverpool, Warrington, Preston etc. And THEY do not believe for one minute that you are ensuring better public transport and or infrastructure is in place before allowing additional development to take place in Leigh.

So, given the recent planning approvals detailed above, despite local objections from residents and Councillors, how do you intend to assure us that you are indeed mindful of the commuting patterns of the working population of Leigh, and that you are ensuring that any future developments are FULLY compliant with YOUR OWN terms and conditions in this respect.

Places for Everyone appears to require 972 houses per annum be built in the WHOLE of Wigan Borough? Is it Wigan Councils intention that this number be front loaded and that a disproportionate number of them be built on land in and around Leigh? This would certainly appear to be the case currently, given the aforementioned approved developments and the intention for a huge number of dwellings to be built at the grandly titled North Leigh Park - which will invariably become yet another of Leigh's 'poor and deprived' crime hotspots.
On the matter of the hated HMOs provided for in the plan, I note that amongst YOUR requirements for planning approval for these dwelling houses (which I thought had been cleansed and cleared in a programme after WW2) is the requirement for 'amenity space' , where sufficient bins can be stored and bikes can be stored and secured, and presumably the residents can avail themselves of fresh air. Yet the 16 or 18 room HMO on the corner of Market St and Lord St allows no such space. Nevertheless - it passed through planning at Wigan with hardly a dissenting voice.

Where are the people who will inhabit this place intended to smoke or vape should they wish to do so? On the pavement in front of the building fronting onto Market St and overlooking the much trumpeted 'new and improved Civic Square'? How lovely that will be for the people who choose to walk in this public space - I think not!

It is pointless Wigan Council setting any terms and conditions to regulate such dwellinghouses, if you are clueless about how many actually exist, if you are not prepared to monitor such premises, and if in any case you totally ignore the conditions YOU have set.

I assume that someone in planning in Wigan is keeping a record of what is being built, where and in what numbers in this Borough. I hope therefore that you can reassure us that Leigh has contributed more than its fair share towards achieving Places for Everyone and that we will now be left in peace for some years whilst everyone else in the Borough - yes, people of Standish, Billinge, Winstanley its your turn to step up to the mark now - take a fair share of the hit. We the people of Leigh have certainly taken more than ours!!!

Putting in place terms and conditions for development is pointless if the people granting the permission to develop totally ignore them. No wonder builders are piling into this area to build. They are laughing behind your backs and in your faces as they take you all for mugs. Sadly, we, the people who bear the consequences don't find it funny at all.

Response from Councillor Paul Prescott, Portfolio Holder for Planning, Environmental Services and Transport

Thank you for your recent enquiry to the webpage. Please find outlined below a response to the points raised in your query.

The site at Alderley Lane (recently approved for 37 homes) forms part of the borough’s identified housing land supply which is needed to contribute towards meeting the annual housing requirement of 972 homes as set in the emerging Places for Everyone Plan. It is on land safeguarded for future development in the adopted Development Plan (Wigan Replacement Unitary Development Plan 2006), and has been identified in the Council’s Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment as a site with potential for housing for over a decade.

Policy CP6 of the Local Plan Core Strategy requires 25% of homes on sites of 10 homes or more to be affordable, subject to viability. The applicants for both the Alderley Lane and Moss Bank Nurseries developments submitted supporting viability evidence demonstrating that 25% affordable housing provision would make the schemes unviable. These were considered in detail by Planning Committee ahead of both schemes being approved, with no affordable at Alderley Lane and 10% at Moss Bank Nurseries. The recently approved scheme on land North of Mosley Common includes 25% affordable housing.

A cumulative assessment of the proposed 147 homes at Moss Bank Nurseries and the 34 homes at Alderley Lane was undertaken during the planning process. This demonstrated that both developments combined would result in minimal changes to the operation of junctions on Warrington Road and, therefore, this could not be used to refuse the planning applications.

Including the sites proposed for allocation in the Places for Everyone Plan, the Council can identify a housing land supply that can accommodate around 17,000 homes for the period to 2039. Of this, around 18% is within Leigh (c.3,100), of which around 85% already has planning permission, and none is within the Green Belt. For comparison, 22% of the housing land supply is in Wigan (c.3,750) and a further 8% is in Standish (1,338), in addition to over 1,050 homes that have been built in Standish over the past decade. In terms of Winstanley and the part of Billinge that is within Wigan Borough (the majority is within St Helens), there is a lack of available suitable land for housing development outside of the Green Belt.

With regard to the permitted HMO on the corner of Lord Street and Market Street, as with all planning applications the report setting out how the application was determined is freely available on the Council’s website. In this case regarding external amenity the report recognised that “given the sustainable and accessible nature of the site (in the town centre), occupants will have the ability to travel with ease to publicly accessible amenity spaces if they wish too. Amongst other considerations was the opportunity to bring this historic building back into active use within the town centre conservation area.

Question Reference Number 864684

I refer to your response to my earlier question 864683. Can we now assume that the Wigan Replacement Unitary Development Plan 2006 is now subsumed into and superseded by the Local Plan which forms part of Greater Manchester Places for Everyone? I turn now to Policy CP6 of the Local Plan Core Strategy covering the requirement for developers to allocate 25% of a development as ' affordable housing'. Invariably developers wishing to build in Wigan submit a viability study which shows that such an allocation would render their scheme 'unviable' (well they would - wouldn't they). Such submissions are considered 'in detail' by ....the Planning Committee. The same Planning Committee, paid by the Council to carry out the Councils wishes with regard to ensuring that the required number of houses are built in the Borough also decides whether the developers viability submission passes or fails? Additionally the impact of such development on existing infrastructure is also decided by .....yes ....the Planning Committee! So the Planning Committee again - paid by Wigan Council largely to rule in favour of the developers to ensure the Council meets its housing targets also decides on the impact assessment? Is there not some conflict of interest there? Surely for the sake of transparency, an independent body should consider both these critical factors then report their findings to the Planning Committee who would then be required to take into account the independent report when deciding whether an application passes or fails?

Response from Councillor David Molyneux MBE, Executive Leader and Portfolio Holder for Economic Development and Regeneration and Councillor Paul Prescott, Portfolio Holder for Planning, Environmental Services and Transport

The Places for Everyone Plan does not replace any remaining content in the Wigan Replacement Unitary Development Plan 2006. It replaces ten policies in the Local Plan Core Strategy and small parts of two others. The rest of the Core Strategy remains unchanged, including the requirement for 25% affordable housing subject to viability. A revised version of the Core Strategy will be published online. Taking viability into account is a national planning policy requirement, and the Council would be open to challenge if it sought to take a different approach. Viability submissions from developers are assessed independently by a qualified expert (normally the District Valuer) appointed by the Council. Viability is a relatively significant issue locally due to relatively low values and high costs arising from the legacy of mining and industry. Despite this, the Council is delivering on its 25% affordable housing requirement as most affordable housing is delivered by other means.

Question Reference Number 864685

I was at the Local Plan Consultation event at Leigh Turnpike Centre back in early November. At that event I recall a figure of slightly more than 15000 houses required to be built in Wigan Borough between now and 2040. I understand (your answer to my earlier question 864683) that Leighs allocation from this 15000 is some 3100. You indicate that a very large proportion of this has already received planning permission. So can you now please tell me, of the 3100 homes to be built in Leigh) how many have received consent and how many additional homes (to those that have already received consent) therefore can we expect for planning to be sought and approved over the next 16 years? Additionally the Local Plan includes a number of provisos with regard to the building of additional homes. Included in these provisos are the requirements that;

1. Provision is made for affordable homes

2.Provision is made for the increasingly elderly demographic of the Borough presumably by way of bungalows, low rise apartments with lifts etc)

3.Provision includes all types of housing including HMOs My questions then is this: To what extent is the current housing for which consent has already been given meeting each of these provisos?

I ask this because I currently see little evidence that any provision is made for categories 1 and 2 above as every housing development seems to consist of '3 and 4 bedroom executive type family homes' or 'multi storey 2 bedroomed apartments' with no lifts!! I turn now to the matter of HMOs. Since these now form part of the Local Plan and each individual 'unit' therefore counts as 'one housing unit' surely, critical in determining to what extent the plan has been met, is to know the actual number of HMOs in the Borough. I understand that Wigan Council does not have this information because many HMOs are not actually registered as such because the total number of occupants of a single property is below the minimum required for registration as an HMO. Surely a simple interrogation of the 'Housing Benefit' database would show the number of claimants at any one property. Surely if the property is one dwelling with 5 people living in it only one person is paying rent and therefore only one person is entitled to Housing Benefit? Whereas, if the property consists of 5 people in 5 individual units all paying rent, each would be entitled to Housing Benefit? Also are not people living in individual units in one property not required to pay Council Tax (or at least be registered to pay even if exempt). That then would surely give some indication of how many people are actually living in Leigh and the wider Borough. Please don't tell me that the census provides this information - the type of people who doss on the floors of the slums of Central Leigh are as likely to fill in a census form as I am to fly to the moon! They are completely 'off the radar' until of course they are availing themselves of our welfare state and our NHS and other services or causing offence and social disruption in our town centre. I personally believe there is a lot of 'smoke and mirrors' at Wigan Council about the numbers of HMO dwellers in this Borough and the numbers are far higher than we are told. An indication that you have some control over this particular area of housing provision would therefore be reassuring on a number of levels, one being that we may already unknowingly be close to meeting our 15000 housing target, another being we may ( s people suspect when they attempt to access services) be a far more populous Borough than we think, and may therefore be entitled to additional funding and services. I will be interested to receive your answers to all the above.

Information on the planning status of the housing supply in Leigh can be found in Appendix F of the Wigan Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment, which can be viewed at SHLAA (wigan.gov.uk).

Significant numbers of affordable homes have been developed in the borough in recent years, with 566 affordable homes delivered in 2022/23, 418 of which were grant funded and 139 of which were non grant funded, the vast majority of which are delivered by commercial housebuilders through Section 106 Agreements attached to planning permissions. Over 300 affordable homes have been delivered in Wigan every year since 2019/20. Further affordable homes have permission in a range of locations around the borough, and we anticipate high levels of delivery in the future.

The Council is also delivering specialist accommodation for older people, such as extra care accommodation at Wharfedale in Leigh and at Miles Lane in Shevington. At Sandalwood Drive, Wigan, the scheme involved the provision of extra care apartments and bungalows. The delivery of affordable homes and homes for older people is a priority in the emerging Local Plan and we are engaging with developers about these issues as part of the Local Plan preparation process.

HMOs cater for a variety of residents including people on low incomes, young professionals, students and those on short-term work contracts. Not all residents of HMOs claim housing benefit. HMOs in the borough are identified from a variety of sources, including HMO licensing data, planning records and Council Tax data. We have produced a Supplementary Planning Document to better manage the provision of HMOs and our intention is to include a policy that provides certain restrictions and safeguards on HMO provision in the emerging Local Plan.

Question Reference Number 864686

As I have mentioned previously I attended the Local Plan consultation meeting at Leigh Turnpike Centre back in early November. At that meeting I recall that the number of houses allocated to be built in Wigan Borough between now and 2040 was somewhere slightly in excess of 15000. In your answer to my previous question 864683 you refer to there being sufficient land to build 17000 properties under the Local Plan and indeed recently I have seen a figure of some 16800 quoted. Can I ask why when, per the 2021 census we had the smallest growth of any Borough in Greater Manchester (3.9%) we are offering to build more homes than we are predicted to need???

At the consultation meeting, housing was one of the most widely discussed topics and certainly in my group the one topic which angered most people. It is easy to understand why.

Although not designated 'green belt' every spare piece of land, field and green space now seems to have a housing development on it or has planning granted. Yet despite this nothing improves for the existing residents of the Borough.

NO improvement to our transport infrastructure (one of the very few Boroughs still with no Metrolink connection - which of course if it ever happens will be Wigan bound and nowhere near Leigh).

NO nighttime economy (outside of Wigan town centre - although Atherton and Tyldesley have improved significantly since the scales dropped from their residents eyes and they voted in Independent councilors who refuse to toe the Wigan party line).

NO police to patrol our town centres (then we are punished for the consequential anti social behaviour by being denied any recreational development in the town centre).

NO increase in GP provision, or in educational provision. I understand that the Local Plan will be ratified on 21 March. I sincerely hope that all the objections put forward at that November meeting have been fully considered and where appropriate incorporated into the plan. If as a result the plan has been changed I certainly have not seen any amended Plan.

Again this sounds like Wigan Council paying lip service to the consultation process and totally ignoring the representations of its electorate. Meanwhile - rather than clinging desperately and being dragged along on Burnhams coat tails, Stockport chose not to be any part of Places For Everyone and to go it alone and ....the investment is pouring in!!!!

Can I ask therefore - how many houses will be built in Wigan Borough under Places For Everyone between now and 2040 - is it 15,000 or 17000? If it is 17000 where exactly are the additional houses being built and why? Will there be a note incorporated into the Plan to say that this figure has been agreed at council level without consultation with the electorate?

Indeed should we actually be part of Places for Everyone - I believe this was intended to reign in Councils like Wigan. It seems not to have worked particularly well.

Before the Places for Everyone Plan was adopted, the annual housing requirement for Wigan Borough was set out in the 2013 Wigan Core Strategy until that plan was five years old, and then it was based upon Local Housing Need derived using the standard methodology set out in national planning policy guidance. The Core Strategy requirement was 1,000 dwellings per year and the annual figure derived from the standard methodology fluctuated from a high of 944 dwellings per year to a low of 834 dwellings per year over the years since 2018.

The Places for Everyone Plan sets out a requirement for the Borough to plan for an average of 972 additional homes per year over the period 2022 – 2039. The housing requirement and distribution of new homes in the Plan was assessed by independent inspectors through the Places for Everyone examination and, subject to main modifications, was found sound. The Inspectors’ Report can be viewed at PfE - Inspectors Report 01 - FINAL.docx (external link).

Leigh has seen significant investment in transport infrastructure and services locally within the last 20 years or more, in particular in the form of the very successful guided busway, with additional capacity now being planned. The Council resolved at its meeting on 12th April 2023 to ask Transport for Greater Manchester to explore options and a business case to make Leigh a Metrolink terminus. New night buses are to be piloted shortly between Manchester and Leigh via the busway, as well as between Manchester and Bolton. If those pilots are successful they will be rolled out across Greater Manchester. We are also, with TfGM, actively developing proposals for a new rail station at Golborne, which will benefit the Leigh area.

There were restrictions on new licensed premises in Leigh and Wigan town centres for public health and anti-social behaviour reasons, which have now been lifted. Over £30m has been secured for Leigh through the Levelling Up Fund and the Towns Fund and we are working with the business community and residents in Leigh to grow the evening economy, amongst other priority areas.

The availability of Police is not a Council matter but both the Police and Council have had to accommodate significant cuts in finance from Government over the last 14 years. GP provision is also not a Council matter and the Council cannot build new schools, but we do ensure that the health and education sectors are well informed of plans for housing such that provision can be planned for.

The Places for Everyone Plan was ratified (adopted) on 21 March. The Local Plan is still in the relatively early stages of preparation and the feedback from the consultation last October, November and December is still being taken into account. It will be reported back on early next year when we produce the first full version of the Local Plan for consultation. The Council’s housing land supply is set out in its strategic housing land availability assessment, which can be viewed at Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment.

Question Reference Number 864687

The government has ruled that local councils should seek the views of locals on 20 mph speed limits and closing roads to motorised transport. This should be done retrospectively. In the light of this, could you change the speed limit on the Poolstock Lane, Carr Lane, Colby Road and Fulbeck Road back to 30 mph, as these are through routes. It is clear that many drivers are not in favour of this change and I have found these roads more dangerous to drive down at 20. Drivers overtaking etc. The use of 20 mph needs to be used sparingly and needs the backing of the motorist. Most cars do not travel well at 20. It is clear to most people that 20 mph speed limits are part of labour party dogma and have very little to do with safety (ROSPA).

Response from the Councillor Paul Prescott, Portfolio Holder for Planning, Environmental Services and Transport

I can confirm that when the Council introduced the 20mph speed limits (in 2013) on the residential roads including Carr Lane, Colby Road and Fulbeck Avenue, these proposals followed the necessary Statutory procedures. This included carrying out public consultation, where these proposals were advertised in the local press, the Council’s Borough Life Magazine and on the Council’s website. In a similar manner, when the 20mph speed limit was implemented on Poolstock Lane (in 2021) as part of a wider Environmental improvement scheme, the Council followed the necessary Statutory procedures, including consultation with the public on this proposal.

The aim of introducing lower speed limits in such areas is to change drivers attitudes and behaviours when travelling on these types of streets, to ensure that travelling at 20mph or lower is the norm. A 20mph speed limit on residential roads has been shown to improve road safety, support people to use more sustainable and healthier modes of transport, such as walking and cycling, and also helps to improve air quality. In addition, where accidents do occur on such streets, the lower speed limits have also been shown to reduce the severity of personal injuries that may result from such an incident.

Whilst I understand that some motorists may have differing views on the use of 20mph speed limits, the Council has to balance the needs of all highway users; and in particular protect the interest of the most vulnerable groups, such as pedestrians. Therefore, I feel that the current speed limits that are in place in the locations you have referenced are the most appropriate in enabling all of the highway users to safely and efficiently move around these streets.