AS someone who attended the Rivington Chase public meeting on September 18, there are several points that don’t seem to have appeared in The Bolton News coverage.

Firstly, over 300 people signed in for the meeting (a lot more than the 100 mentioned) to listen to a well-informed, constructive debate about where the Rivington Chase development is up to and what needs to be done to put it back on track. Secondly, the article failed to mention that at the end the meeting voted overwhelming to support the development in principle but also voted unanimously in support of the following motions.

That the current applications for 112 houses by Bellway Homes (Nos. 01373/17 & 01469/17) should be withdrawn until the issues concerning the Master Plan, contamination and traffic have been resolved.

That no development should take place until: a Master Plan and Design Guide have been prepared and approved. contamination remediation measures covering the whole site have been approved by the Environment Agency, Health & Safety Executive and Bolton Council.

The main access road has been accurately positioned, designed and costed and committed for construction and alternative access to the existing Loco Works access off Chorley New Road is in place

Local MP, Chris Green, who chaired the meeting, promised to convey this strong message to the leader of Bolton Council, the Director of Place and Head of Planning. Anyone wishing to object to the Bellway application or the Phasing Plan application (No.00925/17) should do so on the Bolton Council Planning Portal or write to Planning Control, Director of Place, Town Hall, Bolton BL1 1RU.

I see that Cllr Kevin McKeon has accused our MP of 'playing politics' with the former Loco Works development. It was in fact Horwich First who organised the public meeting following widespread concerns about how the development was progressing and Chris Green, as our public representative, agreed to chair it.

It was notable that no one from Bolton Council chose to attend. Kevin McKeon is quite right when he states that adequate funding is the problem and the Government and Bolton Council have a public obligation to find the monies necessary to clean up the site and build the road before any significant development starts. Both Chris Green and Cliff Morris need to get together to resolve these issues. And if the leader of Bolton Council wants to tell us that the money isn't available he should tell the people of Horwich where he found the £100 million to support yet another plan to regenerate Bolton Town Centre! He should also tell us why there is no social housing provision in a scheme of 1,700 house when it is usually 20%.

P Smith

Buckingham Avenue

Horwich