Horwich Loco plans unveiled to public
HOW Planning was today (Friday 25 October) hosting a public consultation event to outline plans for the regeneration of the former Horwich Loco Works in Bolton.
The 187 acre site has been allocated for a residential-led mixed-use development in Bolton's core strategy with a supporting supplementary planning document.
HOW Planning is acting on behalf of Horwich Vision, a partnership between Bluemantle Limited and Orbit Developments.
The exhibition, which will take place from 12 noon – 8pm at Rivington House, located just off Chorley New Road and accessed via the Horwich Loco Works Industrial Estate beside Horwich Fire Station. It will will show draft plans and members of Horwich Vision and the masterplanning team will be present to discuss the proposals.
Horwich Vision's Simon Isherwood said: "The core strategy fully endorsed the regeneration of the former Horwich Loco works site which has been identified as a strategic site by the council. We are looking forward to sharing the draft plans with the community which will deliver much needed regeneration to this part of Horwich."
The proposed residential-led development has the potential to deliver a mix of uses including up to 1,700 new homes, community and employment uses, public open space and supporting infrastructure.
HOW Planning is working with masterplanners Cass Associates and CBO Transport.
I hope they don’t expect Chorley Old Road to accommodate all the traffic for this new development scheme. This road is too busy at present.
By Anon
but they do expect it to take the traffic as one exit is where the armstrongs exit is now and the other next to the fire station – it will be chaos 24/7- they need a link road to j6 m61 on the other side of the site but they wont do that as it pushes the cost up
By anon
I attended the public consultation on Friday and found it very informative. However I think the developers are very naive if they think the minor roads through the development will not get used as a rat run to the motorway link road and the M61. So to circumvent this, instead of spending money like they intend,on altering the Beehive roundabout,which again would cause unacceptable chaos and delay. The developers should construct a perimeter road, similar to the roads around Middlebrook, to which it would link up with. A new roundabout should be constructed, where the access road is to Armstrongs with a road leading to the perimeter of the site. Then another roundabout with one exit round the perimeter to the left and a minor road into the development. The perimeter road should then turn right along the route of the now footpath and join the existing dead end road again via a roundabout. All these roundabouts would be no different to lots of new towns and would offer an alternative route to the M61. For some of the traffic that would normally use Chorley New Road past this point. Then other traffic from the northern part of Horwich would access the M61 via Victoria road and Chorley New road.
By Brumas.
The traffic through Horwich is next to gridlocked for much of the day. How the extra traffic from the development, can be added is mindboggling. When industry and local employment has totaly vanished from Horwich, Bolton Council might well regret destroying whats left of the locoworks. Together, with Rivington, the works should be deveoped for tourism. They have woken up to the fact that the Bolton to Bury Canal has to be saved for tourism, lets hope they put there thinking caps on with regard to our remaining industrial heritage at the Loco Works.
By anon
Horwich does not need regeneration, but rather Bolton Town centre should be the main focus for How Planning for improving Bolton’s image to outsiders.
By Anon
How Planning are a private consultancy employed by a private partnership to promote the development of this site, why should they therefore be promoting the regeneration of Bolton Town Centre when they have not been contracted to do this Anon?
By Realist