Last Wednesday (1 February 2017) was the regular ‘Full Council’ meeting of Bury Council, the one meeting where all 51 councillors meet to discuss the main issues facing the area.

This was a very busy meeting of the Council, with a full public gallery – mostly people concerned about the proposals in the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework to build 12,500 new houses in Bury, including many on green belt land.

Because of the number of members of the pubic there, we proposed that on this occasion we move straight to the debates on motions, rather than the usual 90 minutes or so of questions to the Leader and joint authorities. This was agreed – most questions were therefore answered in writing which we’ll report on over the coming weeks.

Voter Pilots
We supported a motion (in an amended form) which noted the Government’s current proposed pilot schemes to ask for ID at polling stations. The Government is proposing to pilot this in some areas (not Bury). In general we support proposals to make sure voting is always fair and without fraud – as long as whatever is proposed does not exclude people from voting (ie making sure that many different forms of ID are acceptable, as not everyone has a passport or driving license).

NHS Funding
We were happy to support a motion raising significant concerns about the current crisis in the NHS, particularly around funding and the acute pressures on emergency care and hospital beds.

Greater Manchester Spatial Framework
The Liberal Democrat group proposed a motion asking Bury to withdraw from Greater Manchester Spatial Framework (GMSF). This is the plan, currently being developed by the 10 Greater Manchester Councils, to build 227,000 new houses in Greater Manchester over the next 20 years.

We said:
– We recognised the need for more housing – but that this needs to be housing that people need, including young people getting their first homes and housing suitable for older people who might want to ‘downsize’
– We recognised the need for more jobs – but that these need to be high quality jobs.
– We DON’T think that the GMSF is a good deal for Bury. Across Greater Manchester the GMSF proposed to build houses on 8% of Green Belt land – in Bury it is 20% of Green Belt land (and in Prestwich and Whitefield nearly 50%).
– We DON’T think that the GMSF has made the right approach – we think local people should be in the driving seat about deciding the future ‘shape’ of our local communities, but the GMSF has started with asking land owners and developers about where they want to build.
– We are very concerned about issues like traffic congestion, air pollution and loss of green space that should be at the forefront of any new plans.

Our proposal was:
– That Bury should instead develop its own Bury Plan – recognising that we will still need to make difficult decisions, but that they will be decisions closer to Bury.
– The the plan should be a 15 year plan, not a 20 year plan, which means that 1/3 less land for housing needs to be identified at this stage.
– We support higher levels of development in our town centres, which are close to existing public transport and facilties.

Unfortunately our proposal was defeated, by 31 votes to 19 votes. Every single Labour councillor voted to remain in the GMSF.

There were some concessions made, which in some ways are a small victory, which was the Council agreed to remain in GMSF pending:
– The Government’s Housing White Paper
– The Greater Manchester Metro Mayor election result (some of the candidates are opposed to building on the green belt)
– The GMSF stage 1 consultation outcome.
In addition the Council is to proceed in developing its own Bury Plan alongside GMSF, with all-Party involvement.

We’re going to continue to fight these proposals. We do need more housing, but we must protect our green spaces too.

You can read our Group Leader, Cllr Tim Pickstone’s speech to the meeting here. The meeting is available to watch online – the GMSF debate starts at 1 hour 57 minutes….

Bury Council’s Liberal Democrat Group has submitted its formal response, and objection, in the consultation on the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework. More details of the response below.

Councillors in Bury will also have a chance to debate Bury leaving the GMSF at the Full Council meeting on 1 February 2017 with a motion proposed by the Liberal Democrat group (see Council agenda here).

The full response is below, with the key points being:

– We do not want to see any building on green belt land, certainly not before brownfield sites and existing planning permissions have been used first and empty houses have been brought back into use.

– We object specifically to the use of large sections of green belt land for thousands of houses.

– We believe that the share of green belt to be lost in Bury is unfair and inappropriate (20% lost in Bury compared to 8% across Greater Manchester. 48/49% of green belt lost in Prestwich and Whitefield/Unsworth).

– We do not believe that our Motorway network has the capacity to cope with significant new housing and specifically could not cope with the proposed massive ‘Northern Gateway’ employment site on the M62 next to Whitefield.

– We do not believe that our Highways Network has the capacity to cope with so many new homes in Bury – specifically the A56 is already full, and about to be made single land through Prestwich.

– We do not believe that the Metrolink system currently has the capacity for so many new homes in Bury – it is already full to capacity at many times in the day.

– We are concerned that we already have to live in an area with high air pollution from the M60, and the plans will make this worse.

– As Holyrood Ward councillors we wanted to specifically to object to the proposals in the Northern Gateway to build 3,200 new houses around Simister and Bowlee. The plans would destroy the special character, and community of both villages, the site is poorly located for transport links and public transport and the green ‘break’ between Prestwich/Middleton/Whitefield and Heywood would be completely lost.

– Similarly we do not believe the Heywood Road, or the Mount Road/Sandgate Road/Polefield Road areas have the capacity to deal with any major new developments either in Simister or across the Sandgate Road bridge over the motorway.

– We do believe in further investment in public transport, particularly further extension of the Metrolink network, but would oppose the wholesale building of new motorways.

Read our full submission here, which includes 37 pages of comments received from members of the public.