M6 and M61 link road could be built after 'corridor' between Greater Manchester boroughs gets green light

A major plan to boost links between Wigan and its neighbouring town of Bolton along with thousands of new homes in the next 17 years has been approved. Wigan council gave the thumbs-up to Greater Manchester’s final Places for Everyone (PfE) draft at a meeting yesterday (Wednesday February 28).

The PfE plan sets out strategic employment, residential and transport infrastructure targets across nine of the city region’s boroughs from 2022 to 2039. Councils across the city region have until March 21 to adopt it as the strategy which will inform their local plans and have a major bearing on planning decisions. As well as earmarking sites for a total of 16,527 new homes in Wigan it also sets out an approach to boosting economic competitiveness in the northern districts of Greater Manchester, including focusing on town centres, brownfield land regeneration and strategic improvements to transport connectivity.

A key part of this is the Wigan-Bolton Growth Corridor as a ‘regionally significant area of economic and residential development’. This includes a potential to build a link road between Junction 25 of the M6 and Junction 5 of the M61 at Westhoughton, with congestion between Wigan and Bolton seen as one of the major obstacles to growth in the north of Greater Manchester. Rail and bus links will also be improved.

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However, adoption of the plan means development sites at Junction 25 of the M6 (employment), on land north of Mosley Common (housing) and land west of Gibfield in Atherton (housing and employment) are removed from the Green Belt. A report to the council by director of place Aiden Thatcher pointed out that a large proportion of the allocation at the