More than 300 people attended a public consultation event organised by the Trust and the Council on Thursday 10 September, at Westleigh Cricket Club. Many people completed feedback forms on the day and dozens of other local residents have contributed their opinions online, by email or by post.

The Trust and the Council are very grateful to everyone who sent in their views and took the time and trouble to attend the consultation event.

The consultation phase is now closed and over the next couple of months the Council and the Trust will be working to produce the necessary reports to support the submission of an outline planning application.

Dave Round, Wigan Council Planning Department , Principal Planning Officer
Cheryl Blount-Powell, Canal & River Trust, Development Manage

Wigan Council and the Canal & River Trust are joint freehold owners of circa 51 acres (20 hectares).

The Canal & River Trust is the guardian of 2,000 miles of historic waterways across England and Wales, caring for the nation’s third largest collection of listed structures, as well as museums, archives, and hundreds of important wildlife sites.

We believe that living waterways transform places and enrich lives. We are seeking to ensure this development is of high quality and enhances the canal corridor.

THE PURPOSE OF THE CONSULTATION

We intend to submit an outline planning application in due course and have prepared draft proposals for the site. We welcome your views and feedback on the draft proposals.

The site has an important location, situated between Manchester to the east and Liverpool to the west. The towns of Wigan and Warrington lie to the north and south respectively. The site is well connected to the surrounding key destinations via a comprehensive network of strategic vehicular routes.

The site is located to the west of Leigh Town Centre and occupies an attractive location next to the canal and Pennington Flash Country Park.

The site is identified in the Council’s Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment as potentially suitable for housing.

Services Plan

We have prepared a draft masterplan to show how the site could be developed and we intend to submit this as part of the outline application. The masterplan shows around 470 high quality homes of varying types together with open space, new play facilities, enhanced woodland and canalside walks. In addition to your views on the overall scheme, we welcome your feedback on the three options shown for the area within the hatched box below.

• Connecting to a new roundabout, currently under construction, removing a need to use existing adjacent residential streets for vehicular access

• Improved connections to the canal

• Create a canalside linear park providing landscaped open spaces

• Create a pedestrian / cycle friendly environment within the development

• Orientation of homes to maximise natural surveillance of the canal
 
 
 

• Provision of canalside quality houses complementing the adjacent Marina and Pennington Wharf development

• New pedestrian/cycle bridge over the canal to provide better access into Pennington Flash Country Park

• New play areas and landscaping

• New multi-use path on the north side of the canal improving connectivity to the Marina and town centre

Issued: 19 May 2016

APPLICATION FOR NEW WEST LEIGH WATERFRONT HOMES AND CANAL PARK

An outline planning application for up to 470 homes set in an attractive landscaped waterfront park in West Leigh has been submitted to Wigan Borough Council.

The proposal is to create a mixed residential development next to the Leigh branch of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. The site is jointly owned by waterways charity, the Canal & River Trust and Wigan Council.

Plans include a variety of homes from apartments and two bedroom starter homes to three and four bedroom family homes. The application also features a new cycle-friendly footbridge giving better access from the proposed development to Pennington Flash Country Park, south of the canal, as well as to the wider area including Leigh Town Centre.

A quarter of the 20 hectare site will be retained as open land, including a woodland area separating the site from the Taylor Wimpey Marina development to the west. An upgraded cycle route and surfaced pathway set within parkland on the northern canal bank will link into the Marina development.

A linear landscaped park will also be created between Mersey Street and Radnor Drive, providing a pleasant north-south connection through the site from Firs Lane to the canal.

Existing quiet residential cul-de-sac roads south of Firs Lane and Plank Lane will not be linked into the development site by road but some will have pedestrian and cycle pathways to help local residents access the waterside parkland and footpath network to Pennington Flash and beyond more easily.

Vehicle access to the site will be restricted to two main routes. These will be via a new three arm roundabout constructed on Plank Lane at the western end of the site and on the eastern edge, a fourth arm will be added to the recently constructed roundabout at the Firs Lane/Wigan Road junction.

Cheryl Blount-Powell, Canal & River Trust senior development manager, said: “We held a public consultation event last September and listened to many different views about how the development should look. More than 300 people attended this event and dozens more responded by email or through our website.

“We have listened to the concerns of local residents particularly about access and the loss of open land. As a result, we have carried out further studies and increased public landscaped areas and restricted road access to two main entry points at either side of the development.

“The proposed new footbridge will give enhanced access for residents walking or cycling to the beautiful Pennington Flash Country Park. We are proposing safe places for children to play and new cycle routes and footpaths. The public open spaces will be landscaped, providing an attractive place for local residents wanting to enjoy the waterside scenery, walk their dogs or take a pleasant off-road route into Leigh town centre.”

Karl Battersby, Director Economy & Environment from Wigan Council added: “We have been working jointly with the Canal & River Trust over a period of time to prepare this scheme. It will provide new housing in a canal-side setting close to Leigh town centre.”

“We are required to build an extra 1,000 new homes per year in the borough and this former colliery spoil site, along with a number of other sites, will make a major contribution to the council meeting that commitment to the borough’s residents.”

Local residents are now able to view and comment on the proposed development through the council planning process by visiting Wigan Council’s website and searching for planning application reference A/16/82492/OUTMES.

If the application is approved, the public will have a further opportunity to comment or influence the detailed design of the houses and apartments when a developer is chosen and a detailed planning application is submitted.

Consultation is now closed and we have updated our proposals having reviewed your comments.

If you would like a copy of the consultation material please download the PDF below