Oldham triggers withdrawal from Places for Everyone
At an extraordinary council session, members last night narrowly voted to pull out of the Greater Manchester spatial framework, reaffirming the weight of opinion from its November council meeting.
In that November session, councillors voted 30-29 against Oldham’s contiued participation in PfE, in the face of officer advice that such an action could leave the local authority open to judicial review proceedings.
However, although many councillors believed that was a binding vote, procedural rules meant that the matter returned to the chamber last night, to be discussed and voted on at an extraordinary session.
This time, the outcome was slightly more clearcut, with 31 voting to leave and 28 to stay in. The council will now write to the Secretary of State asking to be withdrawn.
Formally adopted last March after a tortuous process, Places for Everyone is a joint development plan for nine out of the 10 Greater Manchester boroughs, mapping out where future homes and employment spaces will be built over the next 15 years.
The motion was moved by Cllr Howard Sykes and seconded by Cllr Al-Hamdani as follows: “Following recently published reports and debates, this council resolves to: Instruct the Leader of the Council and the Acting Chief Executive to write to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government requesting that they remove Oldham Borough from the ‘Places for Everyone’ development plan.”
Opening the debate, Cllr Sykes, leader of the Liberal Democrat group, said: “This is an opportunity to do the right thing by the people of Oldham borough. It has been made clear for years that the people we represent have rejected Places for Everyone”.
The councillor added that “expensive luxury housing on the Green Belt will not be the way to solve the housing crisis” stating that the targets in PfE were set more than a decade ago, and “designed in Manchester with no thought to local challenges”.
Cllr Al-Hamdani wryly referenced the confusion over November’s vote, adding that in his opinion “this system is broken” and that places need more ability to have more say on compelling developers to include GPs, shops and so on in schemes.
Against that, councillors speaking in favour of PfE warned colleagues to look to Stockport, which has been beset by planning struggles since declining to join the Greater Manchester plan in 2022, with Cllr Elaine Taylor stating “this motion before us comes with no evidence base to leave Places for Everyone and why is that? Because there aren’t any good reasons”.
Also speaking against the motion, Cllr Barbara Brownridge referenced the issues in Stockport, suggesting the lack of a local plan means councils struggle to provide justification of refusal, leading to potentially costly defeats at appeal.
Stockport has in the last year lost at appeal over two large housing projects, at Mirrlees Fields in Hazel Grove and at Gatley Golf Club, where it failed to defend its planning committee’s verdict.
She warned colleagues: “If you are telling colleagues that coming out of Places for Everyone protects them from Green Belt development then you are being disingenuous in the extreme.”
And the prize for the most bonkers political decision in 2025 now goes to the 31 Elected Politicians in Oldham. The competition is officially ended!!!!!
By Anonymous
The cross referencing of Stockport is interesting but my reading of the situation is that Oldham would be in an even worse position. In Stockport they have a plan in place – albeit one which is out of date in many ways – which allocates land as green belt. If development comes forward on that land then it has to jump through a lot of green belt related hoops (including, now, the golden rules in the NPPF). That’s the situation in Stockport. In Oldham the land is no longer allocated as green belt. The plan which previously allocated it as such was replaced by PfE, which has put in place a framework for how the released land should be developed. Take away PfE and the land doesn’t magically go back to being green belt, it simply becomes white land, unallocated and with no policy to guide how it should be developed. They won’t even benefit from the NPPF’s golden rules because it was released for development before the NPPF was updated – footnote 58 is explicitly clear that the golden rules do not apply in that situation.
I’m heartbroken for the local communities who have been misled by their elected representatives on this and for the potentially massive sustainability impacts, but I kind of hope the secretary of state agrees that they can revoke the plan and that they then feel the full force of the unplanned madness that will rain down on them.
By Martin Cranmer
This is, absolutely, 100%, totally not going to bite them on the backside in future….
By Deja
Oh dear, have Oldham not learnt anything from Stockport!? This will be a disaster for them and be open season for developers now. Expect a lot more greenbelt to be built on now!
By Anon
Erm…didn’t these Councillors vote to endorse PfE before it was submitted to the SoS in the first place?
This is exactly the sort of NIMYISM this government shold be stamping out..everyone has to take a share and Oldham is no exception!
And if they weren’t part of PfE I assume they do realise that their housing requirement would increase from 680 dwellings per annum (PfE) to 910 per annum (which is the new requirement under the government’s new standard method) and in which case they’d be looking for even more Green Belt to release.
Unbelievable!
By Just Saying
Absolute stupidity. I’m embarrassed to live in the borough. Foolish and short sighted decision.
By Little Jimmy
The comments from Cllr Brownridge look spot on. Dreadful decision and it isn’t going to end well.
By Mark Aylward
Aunty Angela’s going to have fun with this one.
By Anonymous
Will Angela Rayner say no?
By Anonymous
It appears Oldham don’t care about the message this sends to potential developers in the Borough and indicates that they’ve learnt absolutely nothing from Stockport’s recent planning issues.
You have to feel for Oldham’s planners working in this political environment. It makes developing their Local Plan and making planning decisions almost impossible. I wish them good luck in trying to clear up this mess.
By Depressed Latic
Alongside ‘beef’ and ‘vegetable’, I’ve heard Oxo are going to be releasing ‘The Oldham’: The laughing stock.
By What fresh hell...?
It’s time to get rid of councillors from the planning system. Total incompetents who are incapable of bigger picture thinking. Luckily it seems their time is limited under the new government
By Anonymous
Nimby Liberal Democrats repeating their same mistake as Stockport which has led to an increase in Green Belt development after withdrawing.
By Watcherzero
I’m sure they will be awarded with a new bus interchange, new cycling routes, and extra cash from the GMCA just like Stockport were.
By Patrick
“Oldham triggers withdrawal from Places for Everyone”
Oldham has not ‘triggered’ anything. Oldham chiefs will have to write on behalf of the borough to ask Angela Rayner if they can withdraw from PfE.
Her response will boil down to one or two words to the negative.
And that will be that.
By Reality Check
Martin Cranmer make’s some interesting points. PNW – could you seek a view / clarification from the GMCA on their understanding of the position. If Martin is right then this is off the charts stupidity.
By Anonymous
Sadly performative, and I’m guessing Rayner says no, not least because it would unravel PfE in other GM boroughs.
It’s interesting that Lib Dem leader said ‘expensive luxury housing on greenbelt won’t solve the housing crisis’, and over the border in Rochdale that’s exactly one of the goals of PfE, because surprise, surprise, the poorer boroughs don’t have a big pool of middle cass. labour.
When CA spatial frameworks go to majority voting its going to make for some spectacular politics.
By Rich X
NIMYISM at its finest
By JD
The Councillors who voted for this are either ignorant of planning policy, or understand it completely and gaslighting their supporters by suggesting that life outside the plan would be better. Neither paints them in a positive light.
By Anonymous
Oldham lags behind all its neighbours and now you know why. The town’s reputation is in shreds, and the people who run it are to blame. Nobody with half an O-Level would invest in a town on life-support. Shameful.
By Elephant
Part of me hopes Rayner calls the Lib Dems’ bluff and the current Council leadership set aside to let them deal with the fallout. Every housebuilder and and developer (both scrupulous and otherwise) will besiege them with greenbelt applications offering no affordable, no infrastructure, nothing. This decision is utter lunacy.
Luckily for the people of Oldham, and sadly for fans of comeuppance, Rayner will just say no and this whole palaver will have no effect at all.
By YIMBY
Lest we forget them, PNW really should list the names of the 31 Cllrs as a matter of public record so that we don’t need to wait for the Council minutes. Collectively, the minimum cost of those 31 is £378,572 p.a. I’m assuming they’ve been diligently researching over the last month at least: strategic planning; housing; NHS/GP requirement modelling; retail impact/requirements; grey belt/green belt; the economic benefits of housing; diversifying your social economic base, and; how to increase Council Tax receipts to support local services. If they have, that would be £31,548 well spent. If they haven’t and they’ve just been lemmings, following a friend, they might be taking Oldham over a cliff!
By Mr N Imby
I suppose as Liberals they are ideological Marketists, blindly believing in Marketism and the forces of the Free Market to magically shape communities for the benefit of all. It saves having to think.
By Anonymous
This is basically all down to one party and it’s leader, the Liberal Democrat group, who have repeatedly shown for many many years that they will oppose any policy of the governing or majority party simply for the sake of opposing it. Now the few disgraceful Conservative councillors have sunk to the same level. Yet when the Lib Dems have had brief spells of control of the council, they have achieved nothing themselves. It’s all very sad for Oldham, who will slip further into the abyss as their neighbours at Rochdale and Bury steamroller ahead to prosperity. The reality was that more than what was outlined in PfE was needed for Oldham, not less!
By Anonymous
Like their colleagues in Stockport the Lib Dems in Oldham know that withdrawing from PfE is madness and will put the greenbelt around the town at greater threat from developers. The Lib Dems are playing party politics because when the Government refuses to let Oldham withdraw from the PfE initiative they can blame the Labour Party rather than taking responsibility themselves. It is really shameful!
By Anonymous
A smart person learns from their mistakes.
A wise person learns from *other* people’s mistakes.
Only a fool fails to learn from other’s mistakes, and there are 31 such fools at Oldham BC.
By Sten
Fool if you think its over ’cause you said goodbye….
By Chris Rea
I’ve said this for years now, local councils should have little/nothing to do with housing allocations anymore. They are simply too uneducated, ignorant, arrogant and concerned with getting re-elected…they don’t care about the reality of the world they live in and the industry it affects. They are also never held responsible for the chaos they cause…Council will now lose hundreds of thousands in lost appeals against sites over the coming years…and the people who caused it will walk away scott free.
By Anonymous
Given that the current government is all about growth and has both weakened Green Belt policy and pushed housing numbers up in its December 2024 changes, it is pretty inconceivable that the answer from London will be anything other than an emphatic to Oldham.
Worth remembering too that the direct consequence for Stockport pulling out of the GM plan is that its housing requirement is now over 1000 houses a year higher than if they had stayed in and let other Greater Manchester districts step in to assist. If Oldham does go it alone it would have to provide a third more housing than its PfE target. This is clearly a poor solution for anyone.
By Informed planner
Places for Everyone …death by 1000 cuts ..and that’s a good thing. The sooner it’s recognised for what it is the sooner we can finally kill it. Well done Oldham. Next !
By Anonymous