Greater Manchester Councils have confirmed that the next set of proposals for the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework (GMSF) will be published in early January 2019 for an eight-week public consultation.

The bad news is that the Government seem to be expecting Councils to go for a higher number of homes than had recently expected which would mean the plan has to provide the space for over 200,000 new homes over the next 20 years – in additional to land for jobs and industry.

Prior to his election the Mayor of Greater Manchester had promised “No net loss of Green Belt”, but according to the Manchester Evening News this will NOT be the case in the proposals.

Liberal Democrats in Bury are 100% opposed to loss of green belt land. We do need more homes, but should always use the many ‘brownfield’ sites to do this.