"MR Tottington", Councillor Bill Johnson, has thrown his weight behind a campaign to stop the town being swamped by property developers.

Coun Johnson (76), of Clay Butts Farm, says he is determined to prevent the village, his home for 74 years, becoming a "backwater of Bury".

"The future looks bleak for Tottington, which is now more like a town suburb than the village I once knew," he told the Bury Times.

Coun Johnson, a retired local government worker, said: "Greenmount might as well as be called as Brickmount. There is hardly any green left."

The councillor has represented the village for the past 40 years and was Bury's mayor in 1988. During much of that time he has been fighting to keep property developers out of the village. "I believe it is my job to represent the people of Tottington as best I can," he said.

He has joined the fight to overturn an application proposing 16 of houses on land off Bury Road.

"Tottington cannot cope with any more houses. The roads are already congested, and what about the pressure on schools?" said the councillor, who in 1996 was awarded an MBE for service to the people of Bury.

"Houses do need to be built, but the Government needs to address the issue properly, instead of just simply expecting local authorities to accommodate endless numbers of homes."

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