IN Brief:
- Four Green Belt employment allocations proposed at the initial-draft stage are absent from Wigan’s publication-stage local plan.
- Their previous indicative capacities totalled 545,000 sq m, equivalent to almost 5.9m sq ft of employment floorspace.
- The publication plan is due before Cabinet on 27 August before formal consultation and eventual examination.
Wigan Council has removed four proposed Green Belt employment allocations from the publication-stage version of its emerging local plan, cutting a substantial amount of potential industrial and logistics floorspace from the borough’s future development pipeline.
The four sites appeared in the earlier initial draft under proposals covering land north of M6 Junction 26, Moss Industrial Estate Extension at Aspull Common, Bridgewater West at Astley, and land west of Winwick Lane at Lowton.
Their previous indicative capacities totalled 545,000 sq m of employment floorspace, equivalent to almost 5.9m sq ft. That scale makes their omission more than a minor planning-policy adjustment, particularly in a borough whose motorway connections and established industrial base have supported strong demand for logistics and employment development.
The publication-stage local plan is due before Cabinet on 27 August. If approved through the council process, it will move to a further formal consultation before submission to the Secretary of State and independent examination. Wigan’s own decision records confirm that the publication plan is the next formal stage rather than an adopted policy document.
That distinction matters for developers. The four allocations have been removed from the council’s preferred publication plan, but the wider local-plan process is still continuing and the final development plan will not be settled until consultation, examination, and adoption have been completed.
The construction consequence is nevertheless immediate at pipeline level. Strategic allocations provide the planning framework from which later applications for roads, utilities, drainage, earthworks, warehouses, manufacturing buildings, and supporting development can emerge. Removing a site before publication makes that route considerably less straightforward.
The largest of the four earlier proposals was land west of Winwick Lane, which carried an indicative capacity of 300,000 sq m. Land north of M6 Junction 26 accounted for another 150,000 sq m, Bridgewater West for 50,000 sq m, and the Moss Industrial Estate extension for 45,000 sq m.
Those numbers should not be treated as committed construction volumes: allocation does not guarantee that every square metre will ultimately be built. They do, however, show the scale of development opportunity that the initial draft had been prepared to accommodate before the council revised its approach.
Wigan’s planning evidence has long recognised tension around employment land. The borough needs sites capable of supporting new jobs and modern industrial requirements, while some existing employment land has been lost to other uses or is poorly suited to contemporary occupiers.
The council’s current evidence base continues to include economic and employment-land assessment as a central part of local-plan preparation, alongside transport, housing, flood risk, Green Belt, and infrastructure work. Earlier position statements also recorded uncertainty over the availability of part of the borough’s employment supply and historic losses of employment land to competing uses.
Large logistics and industrial buildings are particularly difficult to replace through small brownfield plots. Occupiers may require broad development platforms, large service yards, HGV circulation, direct strategic-road access, drainage infrastructure, utility capacity, and sufficient separation from sensitive neighbouring uses.
Wigan’s location around the M6, M58, M61, and M62 therefore creates both opportunity and pressure. Strategic connectivity increases demand for distribution and industrial development, but many of the large sites capable of accommodating it sit close to communities or within land subject to Green Belt and environmental constraints.
The council still has employment development opportunities elsewhere, including land supported through the wider Greater Manchester planning framework and established employment areas. The removal of the four sites does not amount to an end to industrial development in the borough.
It does, however, narrow the choice of future strategic locations. That can affect land values and delivery pressure elsewhere because developers, occupiers, and infrastructure providers have fewer sites through which to meet the same underlying demand.
The change also illustrates why local plans matter to construction long before a contractor is appointed. Land allocation determines which schemes are capable of progressing through design, promotion, planning, land assembly, and infrastructure funding, often years before a site compound or tower crane appears.
Businesses further down the supply chain may therefore see little immediate effect, but planners, developers, landowners, infrastructure consultants, and investors will have to adjust assumptions that were built around the earlier draft.
The publication plan will now face formal scrutiny over whether its remaining employment-land strategy is sufficient to support the borough’s economic objectives. Protecting Green Belt land is only one side of that test; the council must also demonstrate that the development plan provides a credible route for the homes, jobs, infrastructure, and economic activity it says the borough needs.
Cabinet consideration on 27 August is the next formal step. If the plan progresses, consultation and examination will determine whether the revised employment strategy survives intact or whether the debate over strategic industrial land returns before adoption.
