Bury Council have this week officially accepted the GMSF at the GMCA meeting and will be voting on this plan in next month’s formal Council Special Meeting. Following a recent online meeting with our Committee members, the Council Leader stated that the Labour majority members will meet beforehand to agree a united response to the vote. Basically, they are going to push a positive vote through despite planning decisions supposedly being non-politically biased.

Once that is done then it will go back to the GMCA and then to the Government Building Inspector. There will be no further consultation; only an opportunity to make comments to the Building Inspector.

This has now left us with no option but to prepare for legal action against the GMSF to stop it as none of our concerns have been listened to.

Thus now that the final GMSF draft has been released we can challenge it legally!

Earlier in the week The Friends of Bury Folk instructed our planning consultants to finalise our formal objections as recommended by our barrister.

We have substantial campaign funds to cover the early stages of our case but we are going to need more in the future. If you are able to contribute to our campaign fund that would be fantastic and thank you to all who have so far.

Donations can be made to the ‘The Friends of Bury Folk’ account directly via bank transfer so we don't pay commission on a 3rd party crowdfunding site.

Account name -       The Friends of Bury Folk

Account number -    31647571

Sort code -               40-15-21

Reference -               YOUR NAME

Cheques can also be made payable to The Friends of Bury Folk and posted to our Membership Secretary at 465 Walshaw Road, Bury, BL8 3AA.

Thank you everyone, let's be the people that saved our countryside in Bury.

WE ARE BURY FOLK! X

WELL ATTENDED PROTEST - ON 10th APRIL, BURY TOWN HALL

James Daly, the leader of the Conservative group in Bury, put forward a motion regarding the GMSF and protection of the greenbelt to be debated at the Council meeting on Wednesday 10th April. Download the motion below.

To show our support for this motion to protect our greenbelt, we decided to arrange for members of Bury Folk to gather outside the Council Chambers prior to the start of the meeting. However, The Assistant Director of Legal and Democratic Services at the Council refused to allow the draft motion to be included on the Agenda for the meeting on the basis that it is of a political and sensitive nature and as such cannot be discussed in the pre-election period. To save face, the draft motions proposed for discussion by the other political groups have now also been withdrawn, although we understand that a meeting of the Council will still take place. We're also aware that Andy Burnham will be there at 6pm for a meeting with Rishi Shori.

On another note, one of the members of our Facebook group drafted an e-Petition about renegotiating Bury's position in the GMSF and this was put up on Bury Council's website earlier this week. However, after accumulating numerous signatures, it was taken down by the Council without explanation. Again, we assume that the Council considered the proposals within it to be too controversial. 

The protest at the refusal to include the motion on the Agenda and at the restriction of democratic debate on this subject (No questions where allowed by the opposition councillors), however there was a plant in the public galleries who had a staged question about the overall figures for the council leader.

Our chairman managed to get in a counter question on the support of our council to challenge these figures as he was at the closed meeting with the housing minister also. The council leader stated that the council had written to the inspector to explain our situation with little brownfield sites and massive housing requirement, this should allow us to lower the figures and not use the greenbelt for housing. The council need to support this method and not use it as an excuse to develop the greenbelt.

Andy Burnham during the protest offered to meet with members of our committee to discuss the GMSF, thus as he requested we have contacted him on his email and are awaiting a response at this time.

Protest Walk:- Sunday 17th March 2019 @ 13:00hrs

      From Elton High School

      To Elton Reservoir Saling Club

A fantastic turn out estimated at over 700 people attended the protest walk making us proud to be part of this great town. Please Bury council fight for your people we need you to convince the GMCA that Bury simply cannot accept the level of greenbelt loss that is proposed, you have the power to make a difference.

Link to GMSF Download: https://www.gmcameetings.co.uk/download/meetings/id/4045/6_gm_spatial_framework

Proposals have been made by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority to release wide areas of green belt land so that it can be used for development.

How can you help?

JOIN THE FRIENDS OF BURY FOLK AS A MEMBER NOW

CLICK ABOVE TO GO STRAIGHT TO THE MEMBERSHIP PAGE

If you want to show your support for the cause of "Bury Folk Keep it Green" in a practical way, why not become a member of the Friends of Bury Folk? 

Please see the Membership page for further details.

Please also see our What can I do? page for other ways you can support the cause.

link to GMSF consultation website

This group is campaigning against the proposals which affect land in Bury, however there are areas all over greater manchester which are affected. Please have a look at the GMSF website under section 28 'Allocations' to see where they all are. There are links to other groups who are campaigning to save these areas on our Contacts page)

Link to OA2 Elton Reservoir

Link to OA3 Walshaw

Link to OA5 Seedfield

Link to Northern Gateway, various allocations around the M62/M66 junction

These first consultation phase on these proposals ended on 16th January 2017.  We are waiting to find out what the result of this consultation is, and when the next stage of consultation will be. Now 2nd stage released see the top of this page.

If you are accessing this site on a mobile device please ensure you expand each of the menus to see all the pages

buryfolkagainstgmsf  @keepitgreenbelt  #saveburysgreenbelt #saveourgreenbelt #GMSF