Places for Everyone

The Places for Everyone (PfE) joint development plan document (DPD) is a joint plan for homes, jobs and the environment. It has been put together by the Joint Committee of the nine local councils of Bury, Bolton, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Tameside, Trafford, and Wigan.

It's a plan setting out where we will build the new homes we need, where our businesses will locate to sustain and create jobs for our people, what infrastructure is needed to support the development and to protect and enhance our towns, cities and landscapes. It covers a timeframe up to 2037.

Whilst one of the key purposes of PfE is to make provision for the homes and jobs needed across Greater Manchester in a co-ordinated and managed way, it is also about establishing a framework for reducing inequalities, improving the lives of our residents, and transforming Greater Manchester into the world-leading city-region we know it can be.

It is a key plan to support the the Greater Manchester Strategy and it links with other key strategies for the city region, including those for housing, transport, the economy and climate change.

Together, the plans will help to reduce inequalities, improve the lives of our residents and transform Greater Manchester into the world leading city region we know it can be.

The Places for Everyone plan:

• identifies the amount of new development that will come forward across the nine districts, in terms of housing, offices, and industry and warehousing, and the main areas in which this will be focused
• supports the delivery of key infrastructure, such as transport and utilities
• protects the important environmental assets across the city region
• allocates sites for employment and housing outside of the existing urban area
• defines a new Green Belt boundary for the nine authorities.

Like all councils, Bury is required by law to have an up-to-date plan in place that identifies the land needed for new homes and business. Without an up-to-date plan in place we would be at serious risk of:

• Planning by appeal: rather than development being planned and managed properly, we would be likely to get inundated by smaller-scale ad-hoc planning applications on Green Belt land with developers appealing against any refusal of planning permission - with a likelihood of success.
• Government intervention: Government has indicated that it will use sanctions for districts that do not have an up-to-date plan by December 2023 meaning that Bury's planning powers could be removed and for us to have a plan produced for us; which could mean higher housing targets.

Bury's current plan was agreed in 1997 and the council has twice tried to update this but its proposals were rejected by a government-appointed planning inspector because they did not provide enough land for new homes.

The Places for Everyone plan will be the first part of Bury's development plan setting out a high level planning framework and this will be followed by the second part, Bury's Local Plan, which will covering more locally-specific planning issues.

If we did not take part in the Places for Everyone plan then:

• Bury would have to produce its own Local Plan covering the same issues currently in the Places for Everyone plan, including identifying land to meet development needs
• the number of new homes required to be built in Bury would be around 2,500 higher than what is proposed in the Places for Everyone plan. This is because, through the Places for Everyone plan, other Greater Manchester councils have agreed to build more homes so Bury has to build fewer
• the amount of Green Belt in the borough likely to be lost as a result would be much higher than what is proposed under the Places for Everyone plan as we would have to find additional land for the 2,500 houses that other districts have agreed to take from our needs
• the major employment site at Northern Gateway might not be built, or would risk being scaled back significantly. This is because a site this large has been proposed to meet Greater Manchester-wide aims and could not be justified to meet Bury's employment needs alone
• the important infrastructure of transport links and schools would not be built. This is because the Places for Everyone plan allows us to bring forward large sites to provide new homes with the necessary infrastructure and, without it, developers would not fund infrastructure on this scale through small scale, incremental, development.

PfE has been prepared in accordance with current Government policy and proposes to cover the period up to 2037.

In setting out how development will be strategically planned for across the nine districts, the PfE will also support Bury in providing:

• An up-to-date plan: Bury's current development plan is the Unitary Development Plan which was adopted in 1997 and is now significantly out of date. The Council has twice tried and failed to get a replacement plan in place over that time but this met with significant challenge as it did not meet housing needs. The Government has indicated that it will intervene in and potentially take over the plan-making process where local authorities do not have an up-to-date plan by December 2023 - which could remove local controls over plan-making. PfE will enable Bury to avoid these sanctions by meeting its statutory requirement to have an up-to-date plan in place covering strategic planning issues.
• A stronger local economy: one of the key aims of PfE is to significantly boost the competitiveness and economic output from the north of the conurbation in order to address the current imbalance in the Greater Manchester economy. The proposal at the Northern Gateway (Heywood/Pilsworth) is key to the delivery of this objective. The jobs and investment generated from this site will help to create a sustained reduction in inequalities and improve the lives of our residents whilst also helping in post-Brexit and post-Covid recovery.
• Significant infrastructure investment: in contrast to identifying smaller, short-term sites, PfE also allows us to bring forward a small number of large, strategic sites that can pave the way for significant investment in the physical and social infrastructure required to support development.
• Reduced impact on the Green Belt: collaborative working on PfE by the nine participating districts has allowed for a redistribution of housing needs to enable more development to be focused in more sustainable locations, such as in the inner core areas of Manchester and Salford. This has enabled Bury to off-set 2,228 homes from our Local Housing Need to other districts which would otherwise have to be accommodated within the borough. The plan therefore means that Bury is able to reduce the amount of Green Belt land required to meet the Local Housing Need.
• Affordable housing: the plan will also help to address the housing crisis, making provision for a substantial amount of affordable homes.
• Reduced inequalities: the new homes, investment and jobs proposed in the plan will help to reduce inequalities for our residents - and help to address the economic imbalance that exists within the conurbation.

It is important to recognise that if PfE did not exist or if Bury were not a participant in the process, the strategic matters that are currently dealt with through the PfE Joint Plan would still need to be covered by the Local Plan. However, the advantages of collaborative working outlined above would be lost.

Bury's current plan is the Unitary Development Plan (1997) which is now out of date date.

We have tried twice to get a replacement plan in place that didn't meet our development needs. However, the plans met with significant challenges and did not get through the Examination process.

Government has threatened interventions, such as the loss of plan-making powers, for local authorities that do not have an up-to-date plan in place by December 2023. The PfE Joint Plan will satisfy the requirement to have a local plan in place to meet the Government's deadline.

Without an up-to-date plan in place, we would also be at serious risk of getting inundated by speculative planning applications on Green Belt sites across the borough. This may lead to a situation where we are 'planning by appeal' i.e. where applicants will appeal against any refusal of planning permission and effectively have their proposals considered by a Planning Inspector.

This could potentially lead to a greater loss of Green Belt because these appeals would be more likely to be allowed by the Planning Inspectorate in the absence of a plan that showed that housing needs could be met elsewhere within the borough.

There are examples elsewhere in the country where the lack of housing supply has resulted in appeals being allowed on Green Belt land. One recent example involved an appeal by Canton Ltd against the decisions of St. Albans City and District Council and Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council to refuse planning permission for 100 dwellings on Green Belt land at Roundhouse Farm in Colney Heath. In this case, the Inspector allowed the appeal and whilst recognising that the proposals would cause harm to the Green Belt by reason of inappropriateness and harm to openness, it was concluded that this was outweighed by an acute housing delivery shortage and affordable housing need. View the Planning Inspectorate appeal casework.

Furthermore, without an up-to-date plan in place, the Council would not be fulfilling our duty to provide the homes and jobs for a growing population.

The Government has recently released a package of proposals for the reform of the planning system in England these are set out in a white paper entitled 'Planning for the Future' (August 2020). The proposals are designed to streamline and modernise the planning process, improve outcomes on design and sustainability, reform developer contributions and ensure that more land is available for development where it is needed.

At the present time, Government intentions to reform the planning system are only proposals and could be changed as a result of comments received from stakeholders.

Any changes to national planning policy will be considered as the PfE Joint Plan moves forward and the Planning Inspectorate will consider any changes in the Examination process.

COVID-19 had a major impact on the way people live and work over the shorter-term with a high degree of uncertainty over its impact in the long-term. The Government has been very clear that we need to positively plan for recovery, with the 'Build, Build, Build' announcement at the end of June 2020.

The need for a spatial plan to provide certainty and guide development, investment and infrastructure has never been stronger. Government sent a very strong message that COVID-19 should not be a reason to delay either the preparation of statutory plans or the determination of planning applications through the publication of emergency guidance to enable local authorities to continue to exercise their planning functions.

The PfE Joint Plan is an essential building block of the city region's long-term recovery. It will:

• provide a platform for development that enables us to attract central government funding to deliver affordable housing and infrastructure; enable utilities to deliver their infrastructure investment
• give confidence to the private sector to grow and invest in Greater Manchester
• provide a route by which construction can proceed, providing short term economic stimulus
• provide a mechanism for accelerating the low carbon and sustainability agenda.

In short, PfE will demonstrate what 'building back better' means spatially across the nine participating Greater Manchester districts.

The starting point for housing targets is the Government's standard methodology for calculating Local Housing Needs (LHN). This is designed to provide local authorities with a clear and consistent understanding of the number of new homes needed in an area. The methodology uses the ONS 2014-based household projections.

The Government has previously carried out consultation on changes to the methodology based on the 2018 household projections. Following the consultation, the Government determined that the 2014 based projections should continue to be used as the baseline for the standard method, but that a 35 percent cities and urban centres uplift should be applied to the top 20 urban local authorities, including Manchester City Council. This was introduced to the standard method in December 2020.

The Government's methodology gives a minimum baseline housing target of 164,880 new homes for the PfE plan area over the plan period of 2021 to 2037.

For Bury, it gives a Local Housing Needs target of 9,456 homes over the plan period (591 homes per year). This is the baseline starting point for a plan to consider.

PfE proposes five locations for new housing sites in Bury, two of which are part of the Northern Gateway proposals.

Together, these sites have the capacity to deliver around 6,440 new homes. As indicated, it is envisaged that only around 4,840 of these will be built within the plan period, with the rest meeting the longer-term needs of the Borough. Around 1,210 (25 percent) of these units are envisaged to be affordable homes.

Seedfield

• Up to 140 new dwellings on a largely brownfield site (former school and training facility with large areas of car parking)
• a mix of house types to diversify residential accommodation within the Seedfield area of Bury
• 25 percent of houses to be affordable (35 homes)
• new recreation provision
• existing sports pitches on the site to be replaced in the local area
• enhanced wildlife corridor
• improved access to Burrs Country Park to help increase travel on foot or by cycle.

Walshaw

• 1,250 new dwellings, offering a mix of house types to diversify residential accommodation in the Tottington/Bury West area, including accommodation for older people and provision of plots for custom and self-building housing
• 25 percent of houses to be affordable (313 homes)
• new through-road to provide an alternative for traffic using roads through Walshaw village
• major investment in public transport
• new primary school
• flood risk mitigation / improved sewerage capacity
• new recreation space including play areas
• retained and enhanced recreation space at Bolholt, Cyrus Ainsworth Nurseries, Dow Lane Recreation Ground and Elton Vale
• net gains for biodiversity assets
• new and enhanced green infrastructure corridors offering improved public access, increased north-south connectivity and travel on foot or by cycle (from Scobell Street through to the Dow Lane recreation area)
• protection and enhancement of heritage and archaeological assets, including the Grade II* Listed Christ Church and its setting, and the wider historic character of the surrounding area.

Elton Reservoir Area

• A total of around 3,500 new homes including a mix of house types and sizes to diversify accommodation in Bury/Radcliffe, accommodation for older people and plots for custom and self-build. Around 1,900 of the homes are expected to be delivered within the plan period
• 25 percent of houses to be affordable (875 affordable homes in total, with 475 within the plan period)
• new link road connecting Bolton and Bury Road (A58) in the north with Bury Road, Radcliffe in the south-east and with Spring Lane to the south
• improved public transport connectivity including a new Metrolink stop with park and ride facilities at Warth Fold
• new education provision with two new primary schools within the site
• new local centres providing small-scale shops and community facilities
• new and accessible recreation land, to be provided as a significant green corridor which will remain in the Green Belt, as part of the high quality and publicly accessible open space/parkland around Elton and Withins Reservoirs, upgrading the tourism and leisure offer and providing a network of multi-functional green and blue infrastructure within the allocation
• net gains for biodiversity assets
• flood risk mitigation and appropriate surface water drainage measures
• new and improved walking and cycling network across the parkland and along the canal, offering increased public access for residents from Bury and Radcliffe
• protection and enhancement of heritage and archaeological assets and their setting, including the Grade II listed Old Hall Farmhouse, and the wider historic character of the surrounding area.

Northern Gateway, Castle Road

• 200 new homes on land off Castle Road, offering a mix of house types and sizes and including provision of plots for custom and self-build housing, as part of wider proposal for employment in the Heywood/Pilsworth area
• 25 percent of houses to be affordable (50 homes)
• provision for education
• noise and air quality mitigation along the M66 motorway corridor
• new recreation provision to meet the needs of prospective residents
• net gains for biodiversity assets.

Northern Gateway, Simister/Bowlee

• Development of around 1,350 homes as part of a wider proposal for 1,550 houses across Bury and Rochdale
• 25 percent of the houses within Bury to be affordable (338 homes)
• provision of a broad mix of house types and sizes to diversify the type of accommodation across the Simister, Bowlee and Birch and Langley areas, including provision for older people and plots for custom and self-build
• provision of new walking and cycling routes that allow for sustainable and healthier modes of travel
• supporting transport infrastructure including an upgrade of the local highways network and improved public transport provision
• provision for a new primary school and a contribution towards secondary school provision
• new and upgraded areas of public open space
• net gains for biodiversity assets
• noise and air quality mitigation along the M62 and M60 motorway corridors.

PfE seeks to achieve a thriving, inclusive and productive economy in all parts of the plan area. Key to this will be ensuring that employment growth is achieved across the Greater Manchester conurbation, helping to ensure that employment growth opportunities are well connected and accessible to all residents.

The key locations that will help to maximise economic growth in an inclusive way include:

• The City Centre: which will be further strengthened as the most significant economic location in the UK outside London, providing a high concentration of jobs that are highly accessible from across Greater Manchester and beyond.
• The Quays: which will deliver sustained growth as a major business location including an internationally important digital and creative cluster.
• The wider area of economic activity at the heart of Greater Manchester: stretching from the Etihad Campus in the east, through the City Centre and The Quays, to Trafford Park and the Trafford Centre, which will provide a diverse range of businesses and jobs with key clusters of growth sectors.
• Manchester Airport Enterprise Zone: with the expansion of the airport as the UK's primary international gateway outside London and the South East this area will provide easy business connectivity across the world, and increased employment activity around the airport, Wythenshawe Hospital/MediPark, and the proposed HS2 station.
• The seven main town centres (Altrincham, Ashton-under-Lyne, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale and Wigan): which will provide a stronger focus for local economic activity, and exploit important advantages such as the direct mainline rail links to London from Stockport and Wigan, HS2 and the university in Bolton.
• Port Salford: which will provide sustainable freight connections by water and rail and act as an international gateway via facilities at the Port of Liverpool.
• Northern Gateway East Growth Corridor: with a massive expansion of the existing employment areas forming a major facility similar in size to Trafford Park, helping to deliver a better distribution of growth across Greater Manchester and boosting the economy of the northern part of the city-region.
• M6 logistics hub in Wigan: extending into Warrington, St Helens and West Lancashire, which will provide a major cluster of warehousing and distribution activity along the M6 corridor with easy access to the Port of Liverpool via the M58.

Employment land is that which is identified for industrial and warehousing or office development.

For many years, Bury has suffered from an inadequate supply of employment land, in terms of both quantity and quality.

The latest monitoring of Bury's existing employment land supply (April 2020) shows that there are only 12 sites available across the borough covering an area of only 9.52 hectares. Of these sites, 8 are small-scale sites of less than 0.4 hectares in size.

The longstanding issues with Bury's supply of employment land has undoubtedly held back the local economy due to the lack of opportunities for attracting new inward investment and has led to a number of existing Bury companies having to relocate elsewhere due to a lack of opportunity to expand or relocate within the borough.

It has also contributed towards Bury having a low ratio of jobs compared to its working age population, meaning that a high percentage of the borough's resident workforce have to travel outside the borough to their place of work.

Bury has by far the lowest existing baseline supply capable of accommodating only 10,231 square metres of industrial and warehousing floorspace (equating to only 0.54 percent of the total existing supply across the nine districts). Not only is this the by far the lowest quantitative supply of any of the Greater Manchester districts, from a qualitative perspective, the existing supply is also largely made up of small sites in secondary locations.

The proposal at Heywood/Pilsworth is part of the Northern Gateway straddling the border between Bury and Rochdale. The site is proposed for an employment-led development and is of a scale that is of national significance with the potential to generate up to 20,000 jobs accessible to Bury residents and a number of deprived communities.

It is proposed that the site should comprise a mix of high quality employment premises in an attractive business park setting in order to appeal to a wide range of business sectors, including the development of an Advanced Manufacturing Park. The key requirements for the site are to:

• deliver a total (across Bury and Rochdale) of around 1,200,000 square metres of industrial and warehousing floorspace across the whole site with around 700,000 square metres being delivered within the plan period
• improve access into the site via upgraded and new motorway junctions, link roads and public transport
• deliver high quality walking and cycle routes to link with adjacent housing areas
• make provision for other necessary infrastructure such as utilities, broadband and electric vehicle charging points
• retain and enhance large parts of the site to provide accessible and high quality areas of green infrastructure focused predominantly around the Whittle and Brightley Brooks
• minimise impacts on and provide net gains for biodiversity assets
• ensure that any development is safe from and mitigates for potential flood risk from all sources
• incorporate appropriate noise and air quality mitigation measures if required
• protect and, where appropriate, enhance the heritage assets and their setting within the allocation.

It is considered necessary to release the whole site from the Green Belt at this stage in order to provide long-term certainty around the land and to secure the necessary supporting infrastructure, such as new and improved highways and access arrangements, along with public transport investment.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking as it is commonly known, is a term used to describe the process of extracting oil and natural gas by the fracturing of underground shale deposits.

The Government believes that shale gas has the potential to provide the UK with greater energy security, growth and jobs and encourage safe and environmentally sound exploration to determine this potential.

However, public concern over the potential impacts arising from fracking means that it has become a highly controversial and divisive issue particularly in terms of the potential environmental impacts and the principle of investing in fossil fuels rather than renewal sources of energy.

In addition, the extraction of fossil fuels would work directly against Greater Manchester's zero carbon targets, offsetting the benefits of the various measures aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

PfE therefore specifies that Greater Manchester authorities, including Bury, will not support fracking.

The Greater Manchester Transport Strategy 2040 and the Transport Strategy Delivery Plan 2020 to 2025 and the Local Implementation Plan set out the required transport interventions required to ensure that proposed developments are supported by the necessary transport infrastructure.

The key proposed transport interventions for Bury include:

• New link roads: to improve connectivity and traffic movement and help to address issues on the existing highway network. For example, the Elton Reservoir site will require the provision of a strategic spine road connecting Bury and Bolton Road (A58) to Bury Road in Radcliffe in order to provide an alternative route and provide extra reliance into the network.
• Junction improvements: to improve accessibility and traffic movement, a number of significant junction improvements in and around the proposed sites will be required. Whilst there will be a more obvious requirement for improvements to directly support and mitigate for the impact of new traffic associated with the development sites, there will also be a requirement to implement improvements further afield. Improvements will be required on both the strategic road network (e.g. motorway junctions) as well as those on the local road network.
• Quality bus transit: the 2040 transport plan includes proposals to improve east-west public transport provision along the A58.
• Pedestrian/cycle routes: to allow effective integration within the sites and their surrounding communities, there will be a need for improved linkages and connections for pedestrians and cyclists.
• Tram-train: the 2040 transport plan includes plans to investigate options for a tram-train operation along the route of the East Lancashire Railway between Bury and Rochdale. If feasible, this will improve the accessibility of the proposed employment development at Heywood/Pilsworth.
• New Metrolink stop: there are plans to improve access to public transport and provide more sustainable transport options through the provision of a new station at Warth to support the development of the Elton Reservoir area.
• Redevelopment of Bury Interchange: there are proposals to provide a modern, attractive and user-friendly public transport facility with better linkages to Bury town centre.

The plan reflects the Transport Strategy Delivery Plan's proposals for transport infrastructure to support the PfE Joint Plan's development proposals.

The delivery of more homes in the borough will increase the demand for social infrastructure, such as schools and health care facilities.

It is important to note that it will take many years before the proposed sites are built out, so the demand on social infrastructure will not necessarily be immediate.

Nevertheless, the PfE 2021 includes policies that seek to ensure that the development proposals make an appropriate contribution to support the provision of new and improved education and healthcare facilities and this is reinforced within each of the allocations policies, where necessary.

The key proposals for social infrastructure include:

• the provision of a new secondary school on the site of the former Coney Green School in Radcliffe
• the provision of primary schools to specifically support development proposals for Walshaw, the Elton Reservoir area and the Simister/Bowlee site
• contributions towards improving capacity at existing schools if required
• additional healthcare provision where required.

The following plan reflects the borough's key requirements for education provision to support the PfE Joint Plan's development proposals.