ALMOST 17,000 new homes could be built across Bolton over the next 20 years.

Bolton Council has submitted a strategy for development as part of the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework — a region wide regeneration plan.

All 10 Greater Manchester councils have been asked to submit housing and commercial building plans.

If the leaders agree on the proposals, they will go out for public consultation at the end of the month.

Bolton’s proposed development plans include building around 16,800 homes over the next two decades.

Seven thousand of them are planned for greenbelt, greenfield or open protected sites.

The remaining 9,800 homes would be built on brownfield sites across the borough.

A major industrial development is also included in Bolton’s framework submission.

Harworth Estates, the company behind the huge Logistics North hub in Over Hulton, is believed to be planning to create another large commercial development on an area of green space near to the Wingates Industrial Estate. This also forms part of the council’s strategy.

The majority of the proposed housing in green spaces has already been reported in The Bolton News in recent weeks.

It focuses mainly on the M61 corridor to the west of the borough.

These include plans from Peel to build 1,700 new homes on land near to the Chequerbent roundabout.

The same company is behind a proposed 1,200 new properties on the Hulton Park Estate — which form part of an ambitious project including a championship standard golf course, hotel and conference centre.

Westhoughton residents could also have to contend with a further 1,000 homes being built on land at Bowlands Hey. Bellway Homes are believed to be one of a number of developers interested.

The council’s framework submission also includes plans for around 3,000 homes in green spaces in the north of the borough.

No specific sites have been identified and it is understood the properties would be built on a wide range of smaller green sites, if approved.

Bolton Council’s executive cabinet member for development and regeneration, Cllr Ebrahim Adia said: “The Greater Manchester Spatial Framework is fundamental to ensuring that we are able to meet the economic development and housing needs for the region in a fully planned and strategic way.

“While our focus in Bolton is on ensuring that we develop brownfield sites first, our current projections show that there are not enough of these for our economic ambitions.

“This submission is our response to that gap.

“It does mean that some areas of greenbelt and greenfield land have been included.

“The council is of course aware of the concerns of residents in terms of building in green areas. That is why we are trying to ensure that we have a long term strategy which supports development and the infrastructure that is needed with it.

“This plan will mitigate the risk of developers coming forward with proposals to build on green sites in the future which do not fit within our planned framework.

“While there are a number of planned developments for green areas, there were a lot more put forward by developers in the call for sites which have not been included because they did not meet our strict criteria.

“We are only at the consultation stage but we believe the framework will give us some security and ability to protect the green belt from development in the future.”

Each local authority leader must agree to the overall proposals.

If they do so at a meeting on October 28, then the public consultation on the proposals will run from October 31 until December 23.

People potentially affected will be entitled to have their say on the GMCA website.

The comments will then be considered before the publication of a final draft of the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework in summer 2017, when another period of consultation will be held.

The plan will then be submitted to the Secretary of State next November.

After a final examination, the framework will be fully adopted at the start of 2019.

n A brownfield site describes land previously used for industrial purposes or some commercial uses.

Greenbelt are areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land surrounding or neighbouring urban areas.