By Ruth Jolley

A MASSIVE regeneration project will create hundreds of jobs and homes, transforming Atherton wasteland.

Planning chiefs this week approved the 250 acres Gibfield Park scheme for industry, 470 homes, a district centre and woodland on old coal tips and workings west of Bag Lane.

The area will be developed by land reclamation specialists Black Country Properties.

Cllr Stephen Hellier, development control committee vice chairman, welcomed the projects as "thoroughly good news."

A new five-legged roundabout at the Atherleigh Way and Wigan Road junction will serve the business park and the project will remove a deep lake on opencast workings off Schofield Lane.

At Tuesday's meeting councillors heard a food company was interested in relocating there.

Cllr Susan Loudon said: "This is very exciting for Atherton. In the last 10 years there has been only small pockets of investment in the area and this project shows a real commitment to the Atherton area.

"It is rare that an area gets the opportunity of such a multi-faceted regeneration package. Consultation made people see the good parts of it. We have had very few objections."

The planned district centre near the Wigan Road junction would include a public house, children's day nursery, doctors and dentists surgeries and shops.

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Parkland, woodland and agricultural land will be developed over a two year period on the Bag Lane Opencast Coal Site and the Gibfield Colliery Tip.

Developers hope the land will support a variety of wildlife and new ponds will be created to help form suitable habitats for the protected Great Crested Newts evident on site.

Persuasive Cllr Loudon negotiated a deal with the developers which means £50,000 worth of playground equipment will be provided as part of the project. She believed traffic concerns would be allayed by weight restrictions on the North Road railway bridge, forcing heavy lorries to exit the business park via Wigan Road.