Wigan Council has removed four employment sites from its draft Local Plan, after residents objected to large warehouses being built close to homes near Astley. The final consultation on the plan closed at 5pm on 21 October 2026.

As reported by BBC News on 21 October, the four sites are north of M6 junction 26, an extension of the Moss Industrial Estate, Bridgewater West in Astley, and land west of Winwick Lane in Lowton. The BBC said the Bridgewater West site, known locally as Higher Green, was to have provided more than half a million square feet of employment space.

The council announced the change on 11 September. It said its cabinet took the decision “after listening carefully to public feedback”, and that an updated report had found Wigan's current land supply was enough to meet its baseline employment land requirement, so the plan could go ahead without the four sites. It told the BBC the plan had “struck the right balance between supporting economic growth and job creation”.

The plan still allocates land for housing. The council says the six housing sites it is keeping are not in the green belt and include North Leigh Park, South Hindley, South of Atherton, East of Atherton and Landgate in Ashton-in-Makerfield. For South Hindley, which proposes up to 2,000 homes, the plan now says a new link road must be funded and programmed before any homes are built and occupied.

The consultation was the ‘publication’ stage of the plan, which ran for six weeks from 9 September. The council says the final version will be submitted to government at the end of the year. Its plan covers the period to March 2039.

Campaigners and opposition councillors told the BBC they had forced the council to act. Joanna Allsop, of the Save Our Astley and Boothstown Greenbelt group, said the group still wanted “long-lasting protection” for the land. The council's Labour leader, Nazia Rehman, said “some lessons have been learned” and that consultation would be “proactive” with communities. The BBC added that the Astley warehouses had led Mayor Bev Craig to question why modern industrial developments are allowed so close to homes.

Sources: BBC News (Kevin Fitzpatrick), 21 October 2026; Wigan Council, 11 September 2026. This article was produced with the help of AI tools and checked by an editor against the sources above.