RESIDENTS FEAR HOMES COULD BE BULLDOZED IF CONTROVERSIAL HOUSING SCHEME GOES AHEAD

Residents fear they could be ‘forced out’ of their homes if a new 63-home development in Salford gets the green light.

Plans have been submitted to the city council’s planners which would involve demolishing two semi-detached homes and felling a number of trees.

The 4.5-acre site would be built where the Pendlebury Miners Welfare Club once stood, on land off Temple Drive on the edge of the St Augustine’s Conservation area in Swinton.

As well as bulldozing two homes on Goodwood Drive, several trees on a green parcel of land in front of existing houses will be felled to widen the road if plans are approved.

One of the two properties under threat of being demolished in Goodwood Drive is occupied by ForHousing tenant Hayley Maxwell, a 34-year-old mother of three, who now fears she will be forced out of the house.

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“I am against this plan, but I don’t own the house so, unless I excercise a right to buy I’m powerless to prevent it,” she said. “It’s very worrying.”

Hayley is a teacher and has children aged 16, 14 and 10.

However, the owners of the nextdoor property who do not wish to be named, said they were taking legal advice following an offer from the developers to buy their house.

Meanwhile, other residents of Goodwood Drive and Temple Drive are against the scheme after plans were posted on the Salford city council planning portal last week.

Grant Birch, 30, has launched a Whatsapp group for residents. He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS):

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“There a lot of opposition to this already. We look out on to lovely trees and a green and all that will be destroyed if this goes ahead."

Carl Barlow, 50, says his home would be overlooked by the properties, he told the LDRS. 

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“I’ve lived here for 43 years, having bought my parents’ house,” he said. “The outlook onto the green with trees is a real asset for this neighbourhood and it will be destroyed by this development.”

The company behind the application is King Associates Limited, based in Manchester.

Underneath the is the disused Clifton Hall Railway Tunnell, also known as the ‘Black Harry Tunnel, which partially collapsed in 1953 and is backfilled with spoil from a nearby colliery.

The design and access statement by Traingle Architects Ltd submitted on behalf of King Associates said the plan had been put together in response to ‘identified local demand, helping to reduce anti-social behaviour issues and various problems associated with the site and surrounding houses’.

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“By redeveloping the Temple Drive site, we plan on increasing the benefits of its regeneration by utilising vacant land and delivering much-needed homes for local residents,” it said.

The outline planning application includes vehicle access via Goodwood Drive, but with other details reserved for a full submission.