'We are still failing ordinary people': councillor warns of risks of repeating Bolton's regeneration failures
Councillor David Wilkinson told Place Scrutiny Committee that without better transport links and support for smaller businesses, West of Wingates risks leaving workers behind — just as Middlebrook and Logistics North did before it.
A Bolton councillor has warned that the borough's biggest proposed employment site risks repeating the same mistakes that left thousands of workers without reliable transport links to Middlebrook and Logistics North.
Councillor David Wilkinson used a meeting of Bolton Council's Place Scrutiny Committee to deliver a blunt assessment of the town's record on regeneration — and to sound an alarm about the 6,000-job West of Wingates development currently proposed in the local plan.
"A lot of people are deluding themselves in thinking that West of Wingates will solve a lot of problems," he told the committee. "And I don't think we've got a plan now to really address the issues that will arise."
Cllr Wilkinson, who represents Westhoughton South ward, drew a direct line between the proposed site and two earlier schemes he argued had failed to deliver for workers on the east side of Bolton — where unemployment-related issues remain disproportionately high.
"Middlebrook never achieved its potential for people over on the east side of Bolton," he said. "All the traffic and all the rest of it, but the one thing they should have had... it just seemed to drift away from us. And I'm sorry to say, Logistics North is very similar."
