Save our greenbelt
Littleborough Civic Trust are working as hard as possible to save the Greenbelt we still have as an interest in retaining Littleborough’s heritage etc., (and surrounding areas of course).
Thank you for taking an interest in this page.
We work hard to protect our green spaces from uneccessary housing development creating urban sprawl.
The Smithybridge and Littleborough Save the Greenbelt group was a community action group that formed in 2019 as a response to the Greater Manchester Spatial Framework (GMSF), now known as 'Places for Everyone' (P4E) Sadly, for a variety of reasons, the group no longer exists as a standalone, but has meged into a much more powerful 'Save Greater Manchester's Greenbelt (SGMGB) with its own website; http://savegmgreenbelt.org.uk A 20 year plan identifies areas of land in Greater Manchester as potential building sites for new housing and industrial units. Many areas of green belt land in and around Greater Manchester are included in this plan, and this is also the case in our area.
Two sites locally are highlighted in the GMSF/P4E. Land North of Smithy Bridge (the farmland opposite Hollingworth lake, on Lake Bank) where 300 houses are proposed; and Roch Valley (land off Smithy Bridge Rd) where 210 houses are earmarked.
As you can see from the map to the right, 126 houses now already under construction on the former Akzo Nobel chemical site too (this is outside of the GMSF/P4E).
Added to those, the on 110 houses at New St Dearnley, known as 'Dearnley Meadows', with the developers, Russell Homes wanting to add another 64. This site was originally in the early drafts of the GMSF/P4E, but has already been developed outside of the plan. Makes you question what the point of the plan is, if land can be removed early and developed?
These plans are disastrous for the infrastructure in our area. Our roads are already full to over- capacity. This fact is not supposition, but has already been confirmed by the Council's Highways Dept. As a group we also have major concerns about noise and air pollution. Added to that our doctors surgeries, schools and dentists are already, again, oversubscribed.
Why is Greenbelt important?
Greenbelt is essential not just for physical and mental health, especially when access to outside spaces was essential to wellbeing due to Covid lockdowns; but the land also serves an important purpose as it acts as a sponge soaking up millions of gallons of water. We are sure many of you will remember that on Boxing Day 2015 Littleborough and Smithybridge suffered extensive flooding. It was a called a 'once in a lifetime’ event. Consider what would happen if we add hundreds of houses, with bricks, tarmac, concrete. These soak away fields will be much reduced and this 'once in a lifetime’ flood could well become more common.
Greenbelt also prevents the unrestricted sprawl (urban sprawl) of large built up areas, it safeguards the countryside from encroachment, it assists in urban regeneration by encouraging the use of brownfield sites, it prevents neighbouring towns and cities from merging into one, and it helps to preserve special characteristics of historic towns.
We need your help!
Should the need arise, we encourage you to lobby your local councillors at an appropriate time.
As a community we must unite in a response.
In the meantime you can, as we do, monitor the planning applications page on Rochdale Council's website.