Row over affordable housing erupts at planning meeting

Councillors and planning officers in Wigan have clashed over a 146-home development and the amount of affordable housing it will bring. Plans for Bellway Homes’ development on 11.5 acres of land formerly occupied by the Moss Bank Nurseries on Hooten Lane in Leigh, close to the A580 East Lancs Road, were approved by just one vote by the town’ planning committee.

It was the second time the plans were before the committee after Bellway was asked to ‘up’ the number of affordable poperties in the initial proposal from eight per cent. The new application was for 10pc affordable homes, but that did not satisfy a number of councillors who pointed to Wigan’s policy of a 25pc target for new developments in the borough.

In a meeting that lasted six hours, Coun Fred Walker said: “It’s very easy for us to have a policy that says 25pc affordable housing. The reason we do that is because people need it.

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"The consultation we go through is about what we can do for the people of the borough. That [25pc] needs to be our starting point.

“Developers say Wigan is a cracking play to be selling property. If we start diluting that by saying that affordable housing doesn’t matter that much we will finish up making a nonsense of ourselves and our policy.”

And he added: “Once someone gets away with it, they will all want to do it. We’ve got to make a stand on this and be really clear that we are not going to accept these stops to affordable housing.”

His colleague Coun Stuart Gerrard agreed, pointing out that there are more than 14,500 people in Wigan on the waiting list for social housing. “They can’t afford private renting,” he said. “10pc? I’m pretty sure we could get it up to