2:10pm Wednesday 25th November 2009
RESIDENTS look set to continue their 30-year fight over green belt land they say is protected by a 75-year-old covenant.
Hollands Nurseries, in Darwen Road, Bromley Cross, has submitted two new planning applications to Bolton Council.
One is to change the use of its property from a nursery into a garden centre while a separate application is asking for permission to keep an existing statue of St George, cafe facility and pond at the site.
But residents, who have been fighting development on the land for more than three decades, have slammed the proposals because they say the land is protected by a legally-binding covenant which was made by the land’s former owners, the Ashworth brothers, in 1934.
It said there should be no building on the land unless it was to replace existing agricultural buildings.
One resident, who did not want to be named, said: “We are beginning to wonder if this battle will ever end. I would urge people to object in the strongest terms to this.”
Hollands has hit back, saying the applications are “a paperwork exercise”.
Agent Graeme Luxton, acting on behalf of nursery owner Don Faulkner, said: “All these applications are doing is formalising what is already going on there.
“Mr Faulkner has been trading there since 1989 and it has always been a garden centre in the eyes of the council planning officers.
“They recommended in 2005 that he apply for a change of use but he decided not to because he didn’t want to rock the boat.
“This is just a paperwork exercise and there are to be no new buildings or anything of that sort.”
Residents won a victory in the 1980s when a High Court judge ruled that the covenant should be upheld.
Although it had been broken when housing developer Barratts built on 35 acres of land months earlier, the judge decided it was too late to stop that development.
Since then residents have opposed a number of plans on the site, including Bromley Cross Football Club’s scheme to have 10 football pitches on the land for its junior teams.
A decision on the latest plans is due to be made by January 8, 2010.
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