Oldham Council's planning committee has approved 147 affordable homes on the former Oldham Mumps railway station site, the largest scheme in front of councillors at their meeting on Wednesday 23 September.

All 147 homes will be affordable, delivered with the housing association First Choice Homes Oldham. The site covers 3.92 hectares of previously developed land at Southlink, fronting Oldham Way, and has been largely unused since the station closed and was cleared in 2009. The scheme has three apartment blocks and a mix of terraced, semi-detached and detached family homes, with one and two bedroom properties making up 66 per cent of the total.

The site is between Oldham Way and Southlink Business Park, with a Royal Mail sorting office to the north-east. The transport assessment says vehicles will enter through the existing signal-controlled junction on Oldham Way; the site access arm has been built but is not yet open to traffic. The transport assessment and site location plan show the layout more precisely than a general street map.

The applicant is Vistry Group, with AshtonHale acting as agent. The land is owned jointly by Oldham Council and Transport for Greater Manchester, which is why the approval is delegated to officers to issue once a Section 111 agreement is signed, rather than a straightforward grant.

A Section 111 agreement is the legal route a council uses when it cannot sign a contract with itself. It commits the council and Transport for Greater Manchester to enter a Section 106 agreement on the same terms once the land transfer to the developer is complete. A Section 106 agreement is the mechanism that ties planning obligations, such as affordable housing and money for schools or open space, to a permission.

First Choice Homes Oldham announced the partnership with Vistry in October 2025. It says 98 of the homes will be for social rent, 40 for shared ownership and nine for rent-to-buy, and that they will be built to the government's Future Homes Standard, which it says cuts carbon emissions by 75 to 80 per cent compared with current standards.

Where the money goes

Council officers told the committee the scheme cannot support the full package of policy contributions. The committee report puts the obligations that would normally be sought at £1,689,602.45: £1,124,300.10 for education, £190,102.35 for public open space and £375,200 for off-site tree planting.

After an independent review of the developer's viability appraisal, the recommendation secures £743,607. Council officers told the committee: "the reduced contribution package of £743,607 represents the maximal reasonable level of mitigation that can be secured while still making the scheme viable."

The scheme also carries a requirement to deliver a 30-year habitat management and monitoring plan and a £7,174 biodiversity net gain auditing fee. Biodiversity net gain means developers must leave habitats in a measurably better state than before. Because the on-site gains fall short of the statutory 10 per cent, 6.44 additional habitat units will be bought off site.

Highways officers and Transport for Greater Manchester raised no objection. The two large apartment blocks will have parking at about 50 per cent, meaning one communal space for roughly every two apartments, while the family homes each get at least one space, plus visitor parking.

Air quality and tenure questions

Councillor Peter Klonowski questioned the site's sustainability, pointing to its position next to a dual carriageway, and asked about the high share of social rent at a time when new developments usually mix tenures. Council officers said air quality and noise were assessed as part of the application, that apartments facing Oldham Way will have mechanical ventilation rather than openable windows, and that Environmental Health is satisfied with the conclusions.

Officers told the committee the tenure mix is predominantly social rent, with smaller elements of other tenures, and that it was set in response to demand from First Choice Homes Oldham and the council's housing team.

Isla Brady, speaking for the applicant, told the committee the site had been identified by the council as suitable for housing and forms part of the borough's brownfield land register. "This 100% affordable scheme will deliver a range of homes at a time when there is a well-documented need for affordable homes across Oldham," she said. She said the scheme is supported by grant funding from both Homes England and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.

Councillor Garth Harkness moved approval, describing it as a good scheme, and it was carried.

Restaurant and events venue approved on Broadgate

The committee also approved a two-storey building containing a buffet restaurant on the ground floor and a function and events space above, on land at the junction of Broadgate and Grimshaw Lane in Chadderton.

The triangular site is bounded by Broadgate, Grimshaw Lane and the Rochdale Canal, which is a Special Area of Conservation, a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Site of Special Biological Importance. It contains a pylon and a small pumping station serving the canal lift bridge, and sits inside the Greengate and Broadgate Business Employment Area.

The Broadgate and Grimshaw Lane junction on OpenStreetMap and Google Maps help locate the area. The officer report, rather than either map, defines the application boundary beside the canal.

The applicant has reduced the scale of the scheme since submitting it, removing a floor and then a basement level. The committee report records 89 on-site parking spaces including six accessible spaces, 20 electric vehicle charging points and cycle parking. The council received seven representations after it published the report, raising traffic and congestion at the Broadgate and Grimshaw Lane junction, parking, noise from evening and weekend events, antisocial behaviour, the scale and design of the building, effects on the canal, drainage and pressure on community facilities.

Council officers said the highway authority and Transport for Greater Manchester had no objection, that Environmental Health raised no objection on noise, and that National Grid confirmed on 21 September it does not object subject to safety clearances from overhead power lines. The application was approved unanimously, moved by Councillor Nadeem Iqbal and seconded by Councillor Garth Harkness.

The officer report on the Southlink application and the officer report on the Broadgate and Grimshaw Lane application are published on the council's committee website, along with the full agenda and the video of the meeting. First Choice Homes Oldham's announcement about the Southlink scheme is on its website.