A three-day planning appeal hearing is set to take place in February into rejected plans for a 75-home estate on ‘well loved’ green fields.
The plans, for the area known as the ‘Llama fields’ on Lever Park Avenue, Horwich, close to the West Pennine moors, were thrown out by Bolton Council in 2020 amid massive local opposition.
The appeal, by Eccleston Homes Ltd was at first due to be held last September, but was later postponed.
Now a new hearing date has been set for the Lancaster Suite within Bolton Town Hall, beginning on Tuesday, February 22.
The secretary of state has appointed planning inspector S Dean to preside over the public hearing.
The inspector will hear evidence form the developer, Bolton Council and objectors before arriving at a decision.
The plans, on the three-hectare green field site, are for 36 four-bedroom houses, 24 three-bedroom houses, nine two-bedroom houses, four two- bed apartments and two one-bedroom apartments.
41 of the houses are proposed to be detached, eight are to be semi-detached and 20 are to be terraced houses.
113 letters of objection were received during the original appeal application process.
The objections included ‘the land is protected open land and should be protected from development’ and that ‘Horwich has had more than its fair share of new housing and is full to capacity’.
Other objectors said ‘housing should be built on brownfield sites instead’ that ‘there is space within the Horwich Loco site to build the required houses’ and ‘the land is important to and well loved by local residents’.
Arguments were also made that the site is at the gateway to Lever Park and Rivington and is a transition between the settlement of Horwich and the country park and moorlands.
Chorley Council, whose borough borders the site, objected to the appeal, saying the housing estate would have an adverse impact on the character of the area.
A further issue they raised was the ecological impact of the development on Shaw’s Clough and Shaw’s Wood biological heritage site.
In a previous statement, Bolton Council, gave reason for their refusal of the plans.
They said: “The proposed residential development of the application site would represent inappropriate development of ‘other protected open land’ and would also not maintain or respect the character and appearance of the area and its landscape setting.
“It is considered that the adverse impacts of the development would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits of the proposed development.”
They added that the development has the potential to cause harm to the special nature conservation interest of the West Pennine Moors and to the setting of the neighbouring Grade II listed Lever Park.
