I HAD the privilege to be one of the speakers at the Bolton Council Planning Committee last Thursday when it rejected the Hulton Park proposal by 15 votes to 1.

Peel’s director, Mr Knight has tried to claim in television interviews that this was political, but the vote was absolutely solid across the three main parties and all but one of the independents.

Peel has run an absolutely massive publicity campaign throughout the local area, the north-west and even national newspapers and social media since their new proposal and consultation exercise last June.

They have claimed all sorts of issues as benefits of the scheme: community facilities, the much-ridiculed estate road, even a monument to Pretoria coalminers killed at the estate in 1910, when two such monuments already exist. Peel has achieved massive coverage while HEART and other parties objecting have been granted limited opportunities to have their say in the Bolton News. Peel was always allowed a response.

Despite this, the objectors were much more effective in mobilising support in the local population. The community around Over Hulton has always remained very close-knit.

HEART raised a five-figure sum for legal representation at the public inquiry in 2019, and I heard many comments as we left the meeting that they are totally up for the fight again, if Peel chooses to drag it out further.

The overwhelming opposition to the Peel proposal is at all levels: The local population, councillors of all parties and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, who has said that he will only support the proposal if Bolton wants it. Well, we don’t.

Recently, the Government’s manifesto promise about levelling-up has come to the top of the agenda. Peel have been quick to latch onto this in their recent press articles.

The levelling-up that Bolton needs is jobs for a range of people at various levels, transport, educational opportunities and not least, affordable housing.

In Bolton, this means cheap enough for first-time buyers to afford, not executive housing at a discount. A couple of the councillors spoke on this point and made clear that Peel’s proposal does nothing in any of these areas and they would approach levelling-up from the core-needs of local people.

Whilst there is current debate about major sporting events in the levelling-up portfolio, golf is not the right sport to catch the public mood or the political agenda in Bolton.

Phil Wood