GM Mayor pushes for second look at warehouse planning policy

I often wonder how many politicians, especially career ones, actually know planning in respect of development plan policies and material considerations? Particularly so when they talking about changing the process, when they don’t know said process in the first place.

Looking as an outsider to this development, what’s the harm? Neighbours can see the buildings but as a former colleague repeatedly told me “seeing something is not in and of itself harmful” particularly where it looks like there are distances over 30m between the building and gardens, let alone houses. That is a pretty big distance and one that I think most planning departments would struggle to say causes significant harm, unless the buildings were much much taller than they are on the site.

But I don’t live there, and so this is easy to say in the abstract.

Mad to be developing large scale warehousing so close to housing, and not even any operating time restrictions to protect residents from noise.

Erm..last time I looked pre application community consultation for schemes of this scale is not mandatory whereas the Councils consultation with residents is.

It must be disheartening for Wigan’s planning department to have made what they knew would be a high-profile, controversial decision, find that their decision was correct in an independent audit and still have Bev Craig saying the scheme wouldn’t have got through planning elsewhere.

What should Wigan have done? Cast aside national legislation and local policy and then wait for the inevitable appeal?

To answer your question JohnMac: none, and this isn’t a policy issue. It’s a more fundamental problem with architects’ drawings and planners’ understanding of those drawings. I’m more than happy to stand corrected, because I can’t be bothered looking through the submitted drawings, but I’d bet a pound to a bucket of poo that the plans don’t properly show the context. Planning technicians check if a location plan has been submitted. Planners, in my experience, rarely look at the location plan. That’s why they want a red line on a site plan. They don’t want to look for a dot-dash line to understand the site boundary. The wider problem is that architects increasingly don’t seem to understand the importance of context. We’ve recently reviewed another architect’s scheme where the building next door simply wasn’t shown on the plans. Once you put it on, the proposals don’t work. This was a building for the council?! When did this happen? Revit is an issue: everything becomes about the model rather than understanding and drawing, the building, the place. Add to that an architectural education system where too many students are taught by people with limited understanding of architecture and no practical experience in the built environment and we’re all in trouble. We’re in that bucket. Even when I was at University, I had a tutor who was incapable of designing a corridor. I think Bev Craig is wrong to frame this as a planning-process problem. It’s a people problem: architects not showing context, planners not properly interrogating the site, or the proposals, or the drawings. Wigan Council should buy each affected house for 25% above market value. You and your former colleague can both rent one John.

“allocated for warehousing since 2006” – nuff said, move on.

JohnMac, in some sense, you are correct. However, looking at the proximity and the height of the warehouses, and the orientation being southerly to many pf the houses, it really does have a major impact, they are overbearing and how they have got through the daylight/sunlight analyses, is beyond me.
Anonymous@1:20pm, you too are correct, to an extent. However, it appears obvious to me that they haven’t fully followed national legislation and local planning policy.

I’ve been in property and development for 25 years. This is the craziest planning consent I have seen in my career. The visual impact alone should have been enough to refuse the application in its current form. The adjacent homeowners are now prisoners due to the huge impact on house prices. The development has rendered some properties unsellable. @placenorthwest why are you using a CGI when there are plenty of photos freely available which show the real visual impact of the constructed development?

Hi Anonymous! I have used the CGI as we have permission to use it, and I do not have a photo that we have the rights to use. If you have an image that you can give us permission to use, please do so. You can email it to [email protected] and I’d be more than happy to make the image change.

August 14, 2026 at 2:28 pm

By Julia Hatmaker

IMO not enough weight was given to the visual and noise impacts of the scheme which you would expect would have been judged as major adverse for the adjacent residents. Either that or the judgements in the reports did not present the true impacts the development would have. Layout changes at the desgin stage could have made a significant difference in reducing these impacts.

Astley Park should never had been allocated to warehousing, especially as the understanding of their height and setting was never properly explored or understood. I feel so sorry for the residents who are blighted by this in the extreme with Wigan Council refusing to engage with them in any meaningful way. I’m sure this wouldn’t have received planning permission had a councillor lived there.

Two things to say:-
1. The application was significantly changed (the height of the warehouses was almost doubled!) at the last minute and allowed residents only a few days to respond/make objections to the scheme.
2. Despite the huge scale of this development the Council’s Planning Committee did not see fit to carry out a site visit but, remarkably, have since changed its policy in this respect for more recent schemes.
3. The “independent” audit was commissioned by Wigan Council itself and I would have been very surprised had it criticised the paymaster. The developer was criticised for their consultation being “wholly inadequate” but did the planning authority not verify that ALL requirements re consultation had been met before approving the scheme?
4. @juliahatmaker I too was disappointed to see that you had included a cgi which seems to sanitise the scheme rather than show the real ugly mess which has been foisted upon the local residents (I’m not one by the way) given that there has been a very active and vocal Facebook group fighting this, one which you must have been very aware. Contact them and I’m sure they will supply any number of photos which reflect the real misery which this scheme has brought.

Innocent question, What came first, the allocation or the houses?

I am shocked.. has NOBODY here seen ‘Zoe Bread’ on Instagram and the absolutely disgraceful state of noise, vehicle and other pollution… The council’s avoidance of this issue has been disgraceful…

I don’t live close to those warehouses, but walk my dog near them. I am angered by them and the hideous overbearing view the residents have to endure. Noise 24 hours a day.and the fact that their homes,some of them only been built a few years ago have effectively become unsellable

Didn’t she know about this as deputy mayor under Burnham?

Politicians and planning is never a good mix

Lazy argument @Julia Haymaker. You are a journalist, there are 1000s of images of the real life scheme out there by locals on the internet, Just request permission.

Anonymous 5.59pm – Bev Craig was not Burnhams deputy also this planning permission was granted by the local Council nothing to do with Greater Manchester Council. The planning permission was also granted under national guidelines so it would have been difficult to refuse.

The fact that this ever got approved through planning is a disgrace. The impact it has had on adjoining properties is truly awful & will negatively impact on property prices. The scale of it needs to be seen to be believed. Wigan council need to be held accountable! Shocking!!!