I understand the concerns that residents in Horwich have regarding this piece of land however, it was a Labour administration that put it into the allocations plan, a Labour Executive Members decision to put the land up for sale and a Labour decision to enter talks with Bolton at Home to sell the land.

It is also worth noting that the preliminary planning talks also started under the last administration.

This land could have had more houses on it, could have been sold to a private developer to maximise the profit of the private developer, instead the previous administration proposed to sell this land to Bolton at Home with the intention of providing low-cost housing with affordable rents, something which is desperately needed in Horwich.

The Labour Group has always been consistent on sticking to its allocations plan and all of a sudden they renege on this, possibly for political reasons

This land will still retain over three-quarters of green space, the new houses will have distances of more than double between principal windows than there could have been and Bolton at Home could have possibly submitted plans to build more houses within this small area.

In Little Lever the controversial Great Places development on Dove Bank Estate has taken over two years to build, they are still having some issues with it and they crammed housing into every nook and cranny, taking up every bit of green space.

I for one would have been grateful for a scheme like this on my patch.

Cllr Sean Hornby

UKIP Leader

Bolton Counci