The Local Plan will set housing policy in Oldham up to 2037 and lay the foundation for Greater Manchester's Plan for Homes and Jobs (previously known as the "Greater Manchester Spatial Framework" but since rebranded as "Places for Everyone"  following the withdrawal of Stockport). The Local Plan will impact on where houses are built, which type of houses are built, and which land can be built on. More importantly for our campaign it will also determine how green space will be protected. While the Green Belt itself is protected by law, there is a lot of green space whose protection is regulated by council policy e.g. Cowlishaw. The new Local Plan proposes removing protections at Cowlishaw, Shawside and Royton Moss. If we wish to prevent development on our green space it is important to engage with the council's consultation. 

There is a prevailing view that the council will do what the council wants to do, and these consultations are for the most part lip service. There is some truth in this, but our campaign so far has been successful in having the Thornham allocations removed from the GMSF, where opposition was extremely vocal. The message eventually got through. But another important reason is that the Local Plan (as with the GMSF) will face independent review by a Government Inspection team. Examination in Public is an extremely rigorous process and has been known to fail plans that fall short of various legal requirements. On that note we encourage our campaign supporters to participate in the Local Plan consultation.

Consultation info

The Local Plan document can be accessed on the council website along with its supporting papers at the Local Plan Review. It is a long and tedious document, so Save Royton's Greenbelt and Save Shaw's Greenbelt have provided some guidance on our common positions. The most straightforward way to respond would be to download our consultation form, fill it in, and email it to the council.  

• Download consultation form
• Download consultation guidance
• GMSF flowchart (authored by Save Shaw's Greenbelt)

We would appreciate it if you could take 15 minutes or so to submit a response to the consultation. If you download our consultation form, make sure you save the form after filling it in. Please note that the deadline is 5pm on 29th August 2021.

Email: SPI.Consultations@oldham.gov.uk

Or addressed to:

Strategic Planning and Information

Economy, Skills and Neighbourhoods

Room 310, Level 3, Civic Centre

West Street,

Oldham

OL1 1UH

Alternatively, you could use Oldham Council's Consultation Portal, but it is not very user-friendly.