Legal challenge against recently-approved development masterplan to build 165,000 homes in Greater Manchester gathering pace

A legal challenge against a recently-approved development masterplan to build 165,000 homes in Greater Manchester is gathering pace. Greater Manchester Combined Authority has confirmed it has received a pre-action protocol letter, part of the process for a prospective claimant before taking legal action, with regard to its Places For Everyone (PfE) plan.

The plan was first proposed in 2016 as the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework (GMSF). Its latest, approved incarnation is Places For Everyone, a strategic plan over the next 15 years or so, which has the backing of nine of the ten Greater Manchester councils, bar Stockport who opted out of the scheme in 2021.

The plan is designed to promote growth in the region through jobs and housing. As well as home-building, the plan earmarks significant areas for industrial and business development, some of which is on current green belt land.

The PfE ‘plan of nine’ was subject to an inspection from the government, the results of which were released in February. Inspectors found PfE ‘provides an appropriate basis for the planning of the districts of Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan’ after modifications were made.

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All the nine of the councils have now ratified the plan. However, it has come under fire from numerous pressure groups and politicians across Greater Manchester.

They have come together under the wider Save Greater Manchester’s Greenbelt (SGMGB) group, who are set to mount the legal challenge to the plan. SGMGB say they will fight for their member group’s areas to save ‘beautiful and much treasured green belt that is currently under threat from developers’ shovels’.

In a