Campaigners to sue over plans for Green Belt homes

Malcolm and Jane Wagner say the plans are for "the wrong homes in the wrong places"

A campaign group is taking legal action over controversial plans to build thousands of new homes on Green Belt land.

Save Greater Manchester’s Greenbelt said it wanted to challenge what it believed was a "flawed" and "deeply unpopular" scheme.

The project called Places for Everyone aims to build 175,000 homes in total, along with industrial sites, on both brownfield and Green Belt land.

The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) said the majority of development in the plan would be on existing urban land, mostly on brownfield sites.

The 15-year masterplan for new housing and business developments in the region was signed off in March 2024.

Nine of the 10 boroughs in Greater Manchester have signed up to the plan, with Stockport opting out.

The number of new homes earmarked for Green Belt land has been scaled back since the development plan began in 2014 but campaigners say around 20,000 houses are still planned for Green Belt areas.

Zoe Sherlock, chair of Save Greater Manchester’s Greenbelt said there was enough brownfield land to build all the homes the region needed and insisted there was "no requirement" to use the Green Belt.

“We don’t feel it’s a done deal,” she added, saying she was "hopeful" the legal challenge would be successful.

“This plan is the biggest in English plan-making history. Mistakes can be made so we want to make sure this is the best plan for Greater Manchester.”

The campaign group had issued a pre-action protocol letter to the authorities involved, confirming it would be taking legal action.

GMCA said it was considering the letter and would respond in due course.

It said 90% of housing, 98% of offices, and 51% of industrial and warehousing development set out in the plan is within urban areas.

Campaigners are now fundraising to pay for the legal challenge.

The campaign group is trying to avert the kind of problem faced by Malcolm Wagner, 79, and his wife Jane, 69, who live alongside one of the proposed housing developments in Simister, Bury.

Their home and stables are close to a place where 1,550 new homes and a primary school are earmarked for development on Green Belt - the couple are set to lose stables and two acres of land.

Bury Council says "brownfield only" building is not the answer to a lack of housing in the borough

Mr Wagner, who has lived for 40 years on the site, said the scale of the development "took their breath away".

He told BBC Radio Manchester: “If people came and saw what is around here and what is being taken away, everyone would be astonished that people could be so callous.”

Mrs Wagner added: “These are the wrong homes in the wrong places.”

She said the new homes would destroy the environment, increase traffic and air pollution in an area close to two busy motorways.

“We’ve just not got the infrastructure there to be able to support all these houses,” she added.

The couple said it would be "completely heartbreaking" to leave their home but believe it would "untenable" for them to remain if the building work went ahead.

Bury Council said it had "significantly reduced" the amount of land being used for the development in Simister during the different stages of the plan.

It also said "brownfield only" housing was not the answer to address the lack of housing in the borough.