RADICAL changes are on their way for town planning in Bury.

The town's Unitary Development Plan is set to be scrapped as part of a Government shake-up of the planning process.

Town hall bosses will now be asked to draw up a more flexible set of plans in a bid to streamline the system.

Bury's UDP is a single document including all strategies and land-use maps. Its replacement, the Local Development Framework, will be a "folder" of individual plans and charts that can be altered more easily.

A land-use map would still be produced for the borough, which could be digitally adapted as policies change. Area plans could also be introduced to recognise differences between the borough's six towns.

Excessive detail will be cut, and a five-year period to compile documents reduced to three years. Bury's last UDP was produced in 1997, and instead of working to produce an update the new system will be adopted.

Changes are expected to come into force within the next three years, with legislation now before Parliament. Laws will also make advice on regional planning and land designation binding on councils.

Preparations for the new system were approved by Bury's executive committee on Wednesday of last week.

Coun Stella Smith, Bury's executive member for environment and transport, said: "The rigidity of the UDP has meant that sometimes it does not actually work in preventing inappropriate developments. In other cases it has become an obstacle to us getting the sort of developments that people have wanted.

"If the changes do go ahead we will have a living document that is more responsive to changing needs."