Key Statistics

Regional Planning Guidance (RPG) states that in the Bolton Metropolitan Borough area, the statutory requirement is to build 470 dwellings per year up to 2011. The Bolton area is divided up into 20 wards and covers approximately 50 square miles, and has a population of some 263,700.

Bolton planners intend to meet this target by use of sites that currently have planning permission and from "windfall" sites – windfall sites being land that has unexpectedly become available (closed factories, old schools, derelict land…)

La Scala car park set to become 19 appartments

A worrying trend is being seen in the deliberate creation of windfall sites, e.g., car parks for housing development like the new La Scala development in Westhoughton.

Between April 2004 and March 2009 –
5-year RPG planning period – the requirement is for 2350 new dwellings in the Bolton area.

The current position is that the Housing Land Supply with planning permission totals 3048 dwellings, therefore giving sufficient supply for six and half years (i.e. until October 2010).

In addition, it is anticipated that other windfall sites will come on stream during that period. Should they be used immediately or "stored" for future RPG requirements – a Plan, Monitor and Manage approach?

It should be pointed out the there are some 5000* empty properties within the borough. Government Urban Development policy presumes focus attention on inner city regeneration before developments outside these areas. *A figure equivalent to 10 years housing supply!

The Facts

543 dwellings completed in the Bolton area between April 2002 and March 2003
426 dwellings completed between April 2003 and March 2004
This gives an average of 485 completed dwellings per annum over the last two years.
The Bolton target is to build 80% of dwellings on "brownfield" sites.
Last year 82% were built on previously developed land,
... and over the next 5-year period 86% is to be on brownfield land.
This is to be welcomed – less recourse to build on "green land".
Last year, of the 436 dwellings under construction in the 20 Bolton borough wards:
24% were in the Blackrod Ward; and 21.1% in Westhoughton (c. 92 new dwellings) – comprising of 11.7% plus 9.4% in the Westhoughton and Hulton Park wards repectively.
The 5-year housing land supply up to March 2004 lists 395 houses to be built in Westhoughton (c. 79 per year). However, in addition, since March 2004, a number of other applications have been submitted, and in many cases passed, on windfall brownfield sites.

La Scala (car park): 19 apartments
Metal Box: Barratt: 390 dwellings; Wimpey 114 and Stakehill 76
Bellhouse Hartwell: 76
The Old Bakery: 12

This would give a total of approximately 1100 (c. 220 per year) dwellings having been built or now having planning permission since April 2003.

To put this into perspective the 5-year Bolton target is 2350 (470 per year). If shared out equitably around the borough Westhoughton might reasonably expect to see a figure between 24 (5% of Bolton target) to – on the high side – 94 (20%) new dwellings per year... and this is without the issue of the 5000 vacant Bolton properties being addressed.

Residents of Westhoughton will have seen the town expand and double in size over recent decades. The question for planners and politicians is one of sustainability; and for residents, quality of life.

Westhoughton: it's your town – it's your future.