THE last ball has been bowled in the eight-year saga of Bolton Road Sports Club - by a Government inspector.

The way is now open for plans to move the club to land off Dow Lane, and for Bolton Road Methodist Church to build a new church and housing on the club's current site.

Church leaders this week cheered the news that the Planning Inspectorate had removed the last obstacle to the re-location plans.

The final chapter in the long-running saga has been written after a public inquiry held in Radcliffe Civic Hall on July 21.

That was called after plans to re-site the sports club on land off Dow Lane, Bury, were finally accepted by Bury Council in June. The inquiry was needed to hear an appeal against refusal of planning permission to build houses on the club's current site off Bolton Road.

At the inquiry planning inspector Mr Stephen Meyrick was told how the original application for the housing scheme had been rejected as an alternative site for the sports club had not then been found. Announcing the result of the inquiry this week, Mr Meyrick said on the whole the scheme would, as a whole, be of greater benefit to the community.

The plans would see the creation of a new church and community building, the relocation of the sports club, the creation of a cycle route and walkway at the rear of Bolton Road and the housing development

He added: "For this and other reasons, I allow this appeal and grant planning permission for the development of 81 homes on the Bolton Road land."

Welcoming the decision, Mr Ken Newton, Bolton Road Methodist Church's redevelopment co-ordinator said: "This is great news and I am very relieved by the inspector's decision which brings to an end what has been a very long and hard struggle.

"As for the future, discussions and decisions will be made as to the time scale of the developments on all three schemes which are very much reliant on each other."

The saga of the sports club started in 1990. The church, whose present building is riddled with dry rot, wanted to sell off the sports ground for housing to pay for a new church building.

Eight years of often bitter fighting later, a new site for the club has been found and the church will get the money it needs from the housing development.

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