Plans to build 507 houses and district centre at North Leigh

30 Mar 2020 10:16
Published by: Daniel Almond

PLANS have been submitted to build 507 houses, a district centre and a link road as part of a 1,800-home development.

The first phase of homebuilder Countryside's North Leigh Park site, for 199 homes, was approved in September last year.

And now two fresh applications have been sent to Wigan Council as part of phase 1B for the development, which is north of Nel Pan Lane.

One of them includes designs for 257 houses.

And the other is a hybrid application which includes 250 houses, a link road from Leigh Road to Atherleigh Way and a district centre, which would be "providing services and amenities to the local area".

But the overall realignment of the link road "displaces" land which was previously approved for employment space and is no longer proposed.

A planning document says "it was not possible" to relocate the employment land anywhere else on the site.

The application argues the relocation of a junction on Leigh Road - 170m north of the original plans - is necessary to connect to another link road proposed as part of plans to build 2,000 homes south of Hindley.

The application states: "In summary, to secure the delivery of North Leigh Park for development, the revised alignment of the link road is critical.

"The planned link road will facilitate economic and housing development and form part of the strategic east-west infrastructure across the borough.

"This link road cannot be delivered elsewhere and is also vital to resolve identified traffic issues."

In conclusion, the proposals state: "It is considered the delivery of strategic highway infrastructure and much-needed residential development significantly and demonstrably outweighs any perceived impact from the loss of the delivery of allocated employment land on the site."

A total of 220 of the phase's 507 homes is set to be available for affordable housing.

Proposals also include extensive remediation of the brownfield site, which has a history of being used for coal mining, quarrying and sewage treatment.

The plans say it is estimated that the total construction cost of the total development will amount to £250m and the 10-year project is expected to create 426 full time construction jobs.

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