IN the absence of their own master plan, the council and developers should adopt the plan drawn by Stuart Whittle which featured in The Bolton News on June 4 and has already been submitted to Bolton Council.

Mr Whittle is a highly experienced town planning consultant with first hand knowledge of new town development and he knows the site well (as chairman of Horwich Heritage).

Having been a consultee in the planning process ever since the Loco Works was first earmarked for development, Mr Whittle has consistently pointed out that none of the plans submitted and approved constitutes a master plan, which should bring together all the essential components of residential and employment uses, a village centre, highways, landscape, open space, traffic free footpaths and cycleways on one drawing.

With no response forthcoming, he set about producing such a plan himself, combining all the Horwich Vision elements and adding the 'missing links' between the various development sites.

This has been freely offered to the council and developers in an effort to 'fill the void' and should be eagerly embraced as a much-needed means of co-ordinating the Rivington Chase development at this critical stage.

Barry Jubb

Horwich