GREATER Manchester's leaders have agreed to ambitious housing and development plans that could see about 17,000 houses built in Bolton over the next two decades.

The ten Greater Manchester council leaders — including Bolton chief Cliff Morris — met today in Manchester and signed off the draft plan for the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework — a joint plan for allocating land across the city-region up to the year 2035.

An eight-week period of public consultation will now begin on Monday in which residents will be invited to give their views on the major plans ahead of a final draft being prepared next summer.

As reported in The Bolton News, the proposals agreed to today include plans to build 16,800 new homes in Bolton before 2035 — with about 7,000 of these falling on green belt or protected land.

The biggest housing schemes planned include two from property giants Peel — which wants to build 1700 homes on green space at Chequerbent in Westhoughton as well as up to 1200 homes as part of a championship golf course resort on the sprawling Hulton Park Estate.

There are also proposals to build another 1,000 homes in Westhoughton — on green land at Bowlands Hey, with Bellway Homes believed to be lining up plans for the site.

A further 3,000 houses are being put forward for various green parcels of land located in the north of Bolton — although specific plans have not been identified.

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

One major industrial project has been signed off for consultation within the Spatial Framework.

It concerns a huge 440,000 sq m area of land either side of Junction 6 of the M61 near to the Wingates Industrial Estate.

Harworth Estates, the group behind the Logistics North hub at Over Hulton is behind the plans to create warehousing and other industrial buildings on the land.

Speaking after the meeting, Cllr Morris said he impressed upon the other leaders how vital it will be to have the right transport infrastructure to support the massive developments.

He said: “At the meeting, I pressed for transport investment to follow this plan and I was pleased to receive the backing from my colleagues that will ensure infrastructure is central taking this plan forward.

“It was my argument that a focused plan will do away with hit and miss and mean infrastructure investment can be far more effectively identified and prioritised.

“The government’s watering down of planning guidance – opening up our green belt to developers – is what has brought us to this difficult cross road.

“A place with a plan has a future and this plan is an intervention to protect our green belt and ensure development and economic growth is controlled, measured and sustainable.

“The private sector has put forward the bulk of land for housing and employment development in Westhoughton so a veto solely on this would have had no impact because the landowners can simply go ahead and submit a planning application regardless of if it is included in the plan or not.”

"Once consultation ends the draft proposals will certainly be reviewed to reflect the wider view."

The public are invited to a series of events arranged over the coming weeks.

Further information on these will be published online at greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk/GMSF Responses to the consultation may be made online at gmsf-consult.objective.co.uk , by email to GMSF@agma.gov.uk, by or by post to Greater Manchester Integrated Support Team, PO Box 532 Town Hall, Manchester, M60 2LA