It may also speed up 30 year planning debacle on land nearby
Whitefield Medical Centre – known as The Uplands – which will be demolished and the land sold for development. (Image: Jason Roberts /Manchester Evening News)
The developers will be circling. A prime piece of land for residential use is to come on the market.
It will not make much of a dent in Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner’s mission impossible to build 1.5m homes. But it could be one spark to revitalise a town.
But any builder taking a punt on constructing a smart new enclave will need to be sensitive and patient. The plot is flanked by a small wood in a conservation area and a “Green Flag” park.
It is also just 100 yards from a plot of land which has been at the centre of planning wrangle for three decades.
Whitefield Medical Centre, known as The Uplands, is to be demolished. The partially condemned buildings off Bury New Road have not been fit for purpose for a long time.
An empty part of Whitefield Medical Centre – known as The Uplands. The entire site is to be demolished once relocated to the old Whitefield Library.(Image: Jason Roberts /Manchester Evening News)
Greater Manchester NHS has agreed to buy the nearby empty Whitefield Library on Pinfold Road “in principle”. The health centre will relocated to the library and it is estimated it will open at the end of 2026. The Manchester Evening News understands Bury Council has agreed a price of around £500,000 to £600,000 for the library after its value was independently assessed.
The library closed in 2017 and was subsequently used as a Covid Vaccination Centre from October 2020 to September 2022.
The NHS says the library will be refurbished to deliver a “modern health centre”. Once ready The Uplands site will be demolished, and the land put up for sale. The Uplands site is 80 percent owned by the NHS and 20 percent by Bury Council. Proceeds from the disposal of the land which is likely to attract huge interest will be ploughed back into the NHS.
The empty Whitefield Library which will be refurbished to accomodate a new health centre. (Image: Jason Roberts /Manchester Evening News)
The site is reached by a private road off Bury New Road and includes a substantial area for parking. But its development could trigger a domino effect which will help restore once immaculate gardens, which were the grounds of the former Whitefield Town Hall.
The gardens are now an overgrown glen of mature trees and shrubs just a few yards from The Uplands. But they are in a conservation area owned by the council and managed by its leisure services as a “public open space”.
Archive pictures show how the gardens included a small lake, well kept lawns, and flower beds, when the town hall still stood. The pond – still surrounded by fencing – is now clogged with vegetation and hidden by huge purple beech tree.
The now overgrown former gardens of Whitefield Town Hall – a conservation area. (Image: Jason Roberts /Manchester Evening News)
The now wild coppice is sadly also tarnished with litter. The council “management” of the land amounts to a path being laid on one side of it. The plot is directly behind the Slattery bakery and chocolatier.
But a section of the site, where the old town hall building once stood, is sectioned off behind ugly blue metal fencing and has been the subject of a planning debacle for 31 years.
The site has been the subject of a dozen planning applications since October 1994 when permission was granted to fit metal grills and roller shutters to the doors and windows of the Georgian town hall building which was then still standing.
By 2020 all that remained of the building was its crumbling south facade after being at the mercy of vandals. By January 2021 nothing was left – a once handsome part of the town’s heritage reduced to rubble of bricks and broken columns of elegant stone work.
In its 19th century heyday, as revealed in black and white pictures, its impressive grounds included a small bridge over a lake.
The south facade of the former Whitefield Town Hall before it was pulled down in late 2020. (Image: STEVE ALLEN)
In March 1997 approval had been granted for a 24-bed nursing home and day centre but the developers later went out of business
The building was then acquired by local solicitor, Stephen Latimer, and Dr Kumar Kotegaonkar.
Planning permission was granted for new nursing home plans in 2004 and the new owners made a start on site after being given the go-ahead to demolish the building.
How the Whitefield House facade would have been incorporated into the care home development.
But Bury council then changed the status of the property and its location to a conservation area – and ordered the demolition to cease. But arsonists and vandals as well as planning red-tape took their toll on the property, which was wrecked.
Permission was granted in March 2011 for the removal and storage of all that was then still standing – the facade at the former entrance – but it was never put in storage.
Whitefield House, in its previous glory with gardens, and lake.(Image: Bury Archives)
In October 2014 permission was granted for a 60-bed care home with rehabilitation facilities, car parking and landscaping.
In 2017 the site was promoted on a website as the soon to open 60-bed Whitefield House Nursing Home with plans “to set a new high standard in nursing and care”.
Images of the new building appeared alongside promises of “a full range of activities and services to help those in our care live as independent and fulfilling life as possible.”
In 2017 Mr Latimer told the Manchester Evening News a hitch over a small strip of land at the rear of the plot had caused severe delays.
The former Whitefield Town Hall in its 19th century glory (Image: Bury Archives)
But, finally, after intervention by the then leader of Bury council, Rishi Shori, the land – a strip of scrubland at the rear of the site – was sold by the council to the developers.
In November 2020 a tangle of bushes, trees, and a hedgerow which hid it from the road were cleared and tons of stone laid as a foundation for an impressive new driveway to the former Whitefield House and it looked as if work would finally commence – but nothing happened.
A local councillor hopes that the disposal of The Uplands will ultimately help end the inertia over the site of the former town hall – now just an eyesore of vegetation surrounded by partially broken fencing and used by fly tippers.
Once elegant columns and bricks – the aftermath of the surviving facade of the former Whitefield Town Hall being demolished (Image: Manchester Evening News)
Russell Bernstein, who is also leader of the Tory group, on Bury Council said: “I think it is a great opportunity to create a lasting legacy for future generations. It is obviously a very desirable part of Whitefield.
“The conservation area could well blend in with some high class housing development which would make Whitefield a place more attractive and increase the economic regeneration.
“There has been a major question mark for several years now as to what is happening to the site of the former Whitefield Town Hall. At this present time it is an utter blot on the landscape.
Councillor Russell Bernstein next to the fenced off plot of the former Whitefield Town Hall. (Image: Jason Roberts /Manchester Evening News)
“The time is right for the owner of that land to move forward with his plans or for the council to look at other ways in which they can ensure the right vision is delivered for a very desirable site.”
Mr Latimer was unavailable for comment. A spokesperson for Bury council said: “The former Whitefield House is in private ownership and the Council will support the site being put forward for development for appropriate uses.”
Built in 1805, by Edward Barlow, a nankeen cloth manufacturer when Britain was at war with France. He named it “Green Hill” but from 1933 to 1974 it was Whitefield Town Hall.
The overgrown site of the former Whitefield Town Hall. (Image: Jason Roberts /Manchester Evening News)
In 1857 Alfred Grundy, a solicitor, bought it and renamed it “Underley”. It was later owned by Samuel Walker, a Radliffe ironmonger, and chairman of the Radcliffe Urban District Council.
In 1933 it was purchased by Whitefield council from George Stonestreet for £2,450. After local government reorganisation in 1974 it became Bury council’s engineering department HQ until 1985.
Meanwhile another plot of land next to Whitefield Library is also being earmarked for development. The former Pinfold Day Care Centre, has been vacant since October 2020 when the company Persona vacated it.
The former Pinfold Day Care Centre – a possible site for apartments. (Image: Jason Roberts /Manchester Evening News)
This site is also on the council’s Accelerated Land Disposal Programme, but the sale has been on hold pending agreement on how to proceed with the former library building. A town hall report says: “Upon completion of the sale of the former library to NHS Property Services , a sale of the Day Care Centre site will be progressed.”
The council says no decision has been made regarding the site but the Manchester Evening News understands it is seen as a site for residential development – possibly apartments.