Funding to develop our ex-industrial land | Oliver Ryan MP
Hello everyone, another week, another column - it feels nice to be writing in this column this week, and being able to focus on Burnley, Padiham, and Brierfield in the midst of the Westminster hoo-ha.
Incidentally, remember its local elections next Thursday, and if you want a decent council, live in a decent world, elect decent people - and I'll leave it at that for now!
First, I want to start by congratulating the Burnley Women’s team on their promotion to the Women’s Super League 2 for the first time in their history! It’s been wonderful to see the team having such an incredible season, remaining undefeated the entire time.
Now this week I want to talk about an issue I raised with the Prime Minister in Parliament last week – a regeneration and house building programme for Burnley, Padiham, and Brierfield.
Let me get straight to the meat of it. Burnley is full of ex-industrial, brownfield sites that are unusable and have sat on our town plans for years. These sites are not only eyesores and a problem for local residents, but have so much potential for social, affordable, family homes.
These derelict sites are crying out for regeneration, so I put my ask to the Prime Minister during PMQs: we’ve got the sites, if he has the will. We need to see better and more social housing across Burnley, Padiham, and Brierfield as soon as possible, but we need support to do it.
The sites have been sitting unused for years, despite being approved and already on the town plan. Developers won’t touch them because they can’t afford to take the risk on. This is where I’m asking the Government to step in. We need a coordinated approach that will get the sites ready to put housing on them, to make sure our developers can do more than just about break even.
Developers need a real incentive, and I intend to give them one.
Following my PMQ, the Prime Minister confirmed I will be meeting with the minister to discuss it further. It’s really important we see some forward movement on this for the town. We need housing, and we need to make use of the areas that are being left behind and forgotten. I’ll make the case in the meeting and hopefully we’ll see some forward movement.
As always, if you have any issues you can attend a drop-in at my office, 5 Grimshaw Street, BB11 2AS with a caseworker between 10am-2pm Monday-Thursday. You can also reach out by dropping an email to [email protected] or calling my office on 01282 216398.