THE deputy council leader will “reflect” and “reconsider” his decision to sell a green field for housing after councillors voted against selling the land.

Bolton At Home wants to buy the land behind Singleton Avenue, known locally as Pickup’s Fields, for around £500,000 but the sale has stalled.

The decision has now been referred back to Cllr Martyn Cox with a recommendation, supported by the majority of councillors, not to sell the land and keep it as a green space for the community of Horwich instead.

Cllr Cox promised to listen to what residents have said in the hundreds of letters objecting to the development, but stressed the importance of meeting housebuilding targets.

He said: “Bolton has a government-set target to build 787 new housing units a year. Whilst we can argue about the validity of the target, we are not in any way exceeding it.”

The deputy leader said he decided to sell the council-owned land, which had been earmarked for housing five years ago, on the advice that plans to build 48 houses at the site were deliverable.

But Lib Dem leader Roger Hayes called in the decision, prompting a debate by a scrutiny committee which decided to bring it before the next full council meeting which took place on Wednesday.

He urged councillors to back his recommendation, citing the strength of feeling against the development as a primary concern.

He said: “Whatever the outcome of this debate, the council cannot make the decision – that lies squarely in the lap of the deputy leader and the Conservative group. This will be an acid test of their declared intention to listen to the people in areas long ignored by the previous administration.”

Labour councillor Richard Silvester told his colleagues that Horwich Town Council launched a bid to give community groups a chance to buy the land if it goes on the market by voting to nominate the site as an asset of community value.

The Horwich North East representative also spoke against Bolton At Home’s application to build 48 houses at the site which was refused by the planning committee last month.

He said: “Pickup’s Field should not be sold for development but instead returned as open green space because it is a valuable community asset.”

Horwich and Blackrod First Independents councillor Marie Brady supported Cllr Silvester’s changes to the wording of the Lib Dem proposal which he described as “weaker”.

The newly-elected borough councillor told the chamber that selling Pickup’s Fields would add to the “widely-held” perception that Horwich is only part of the borough when it is suits Bolton.

She said: “Although the town of Horwich is surrounded by green belt, within the town there is very little green or open space left. Every site allocated in Horwich has been either completed or is ongoing. The argument that Pickup’s must be sold to meet the borough’s shortfall is not fair or proportional.”

But council leader David Greenhalgh warned that developers would be “queuing up” to build on the green belt if the housing development does not go ahead.

He argued that if the council does not allow houses to be built on land it has allocated for housing, it would struggle to defend future decisions it makes to not develop the countryside.

The Conservative councillor accused the other parties of playing politics with Pickup’s Fields, noting that Horwich North East, where the land is located, is a three-way marginal seat.

He said: “We care about Horwich as well. Because if this goes through, every developer across the whole of this region will be quoting this decision in appeal after appeal. Not for open protected land, but for green belt land, saying, ‘Bolton Council can’t even deliver on their own allocations policy. They can’t even deliver on the land they put aside so we need to develop into the green belt.’ That is the dangerous predicament for the people of Horwich.”

Plans to build 48 houses on the site behind Singleton Avenue were refused by the planning committee in July but Bolton At Home could appeal the decision.

The deputy leader is expected to decide whether the council will sell the land to the housing association in the coming weeks.