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When Maxine Southwell arrived home from holiday, she walked into her back garden and burst into tears.
She, her husband Ian and their children have lived in their family home in Tyldesley, Wigan, for 18 years. They said they bought the house, which backed onto a field, partly because of the view. But that view no longer exists.
In its place are four hulking warehouses, under construction as part of logistic firm PLP’s controversial Astley Business Park development. With planning permission granted by Wigan Council in 2024, building work next to the hundreds of homes across the Henfold Estate began this year.
The warehouses are up to 60 feet tall and when the Southwells got home in August, that scale became apparent.
“We walked through our garden and we were like ‘wow, what is that?’”, Ms Southwell, 57, told The Independent.
“I burst into tears, I just couldn’t believe it. We’d been away for two weeks and in those two weeks, it had gone from being acceptable to ‘oh god, what is that?’.”
They are not alone in their fury. The married couple are part of campaign group Astley Warehouse Action, which has brought together residents from various housing estates surrounding the development who oppose it – for a multitude of reasons.
The group believes the development is not in-keeping with the residential feel of the area, which has comprised of housing estates since the 1970s, and they think planning permission should not have been granted by Wigan Council. They claim residents were under the impression that any construction would have involved smaller buildings, rather than the grey steel structures which now tower over their homes.
However, the local authority says the planning application set out the size, footprint and height of the units, and there has been no fundamental change to those since permission was granted.
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The view of one of the warehouses from a resident’s garden (Astley Warehouse Action Group)
Last month the group wrote to the council requesting construction be stopped. Wigan Council rejected that but a spokesperson told The Independent: “We fully acknowledge the concerns that residents in the local area have regarding this development, and we are committed to continuing to work with them.
“We are confident that the decision to grant planning permission aligns with national planning policy. Nonetheless we fully acknowledge the concerns being raised and an independent audit of the planning process to ensure additional transparency is currently underway.”
Now, the action group claims the construction is having an impact beyond changing the landscape and causing a lot of noise – it is damaging their property.
Ms Southwell said she believes the creation of embankments on the site has caused water to drain into and flood her garden in recent weeks, while photographs and videos shared on the campaign group’s Instagram account show parents walking along a flooded path, carrying their children to Garrett Hall Primary School.
“We started noticing it coming in the garden a little bit and then it’s just gradually got worse and worse”, said Ms Southwell.
“We’re putting it down to the warehouse development. We’ve never had anything like this before – we’ve lived here for 18 years and we’ve never had any flooding whatsoever.”
The Southwell family are now worried about flooding making its way into their house.
Ms Southwell said: “On Tuesday it was feet away from our extension. This is the start of the winter. It’s only going to get worse, next week is going to be really bad.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen. If it gets any worse than Tuesday, it will reach the house and it will flood the house.
“It’s covered our flower bedding, it was three-quarters up my wellies. That’s how deep it is.
“The electric lights down the bottom of the garden are all covered, so we’ve had to switch the electricity off. We can’t use our garden, we can’t go in it.”
For Ms Southwell, the flooding represents the culmination of months of misery living next to the development, which she believes has taken enjoyment away from her home.
She said: “We bought the house because of the view. We’ve got a balcony from our bedroom and it just looks out on this now. We don’t even open the curtains any more. It’s awful.
“It hurts me to talk about it because it’s devastating. Anybody who comes just can’t believe it. They just can’t. It’s unbelievable.
“We’ve worked hard. I’m 57, my husband’s 60, we’ve worked all of our lives and we’ve got a nice house now. They’re ruining it.”
‘You started to see this steel monster grow’
Central to the fight against the development are married couple, John and Jackie Peters. The retired teachers have lived on the estate for 36 years and are among the leaders of the campaign group, which began to mobilise earlier this year.
Mr Peters said: “There was a shock to the system as you started to see this steel monster grow. Being quite selfish, we saw unit one on the far side of the field, we thought it’s not too bad if it stays down there. Unit two started and it kept growing and growing, closer and closer to our houses, to our estate. It became daunting.
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The development pictured earlier this year, as construction began (Astley Warehouse Action Group)
“We ended up having one of those Mr Bates v the Post Office moments. We tried to hire a room in a pub and I said there could be 30 or 40 people attending. We went for a larger room, and we were knocked back by the attendance that night in summer – more than 200 people attended.
“The meeting was very, very emotional – people were saying how it affected their mental health. It was a huge, huge problem.”
Paul Bullough’s garden backs onto the development and he told The Independent that it now dominates his property and stopped his daughter from using the garden last year.
The 51-year-old said: “It overpowers everything. It’s like a thundercloud, I stand in my back room and it’s dark.
“It overpowers in every aspect. I’ve got workers standing on top of a two metre bund (mound) near my back garden, able to look right into my house.
“That’s been going on for months. We’ve got diggers up and down, overlooking the house. I can feel the engines now. There are days when my glass of water has been shaking on my desk, they’re that close. It absolutely dominates everything, there’s loss of light, we hear it constantly, people looking over the fence, diggers back and forward.”
Accounting manager Mr Bullough also claims he feels the physical impact of the construction process while he is at home.
He explained: “The heavy rollers, when they change gears to reverse, the house does this little shudder when it moves into gear. It’s every minute of every day of our waking lives. It overpowers everything.
“For my daughter, the garden was her safe space. She’d go out, dance and play. She’s 12 and she missed the entire summer because of the dust, the noise, the workers and the HGVs. It’s an entire summer spent indoors from someone who loves the outdoors.”
Paula Boardman, who has lived in her home for 18 years, believes the construction has caused a hole in her floor and a crack in the side of her home. Like the other campaigners who spoke to The Independent, she is struggling with adapting to the change to her area and the impact it has had on her family home.
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Paula Boardman claims the Astley Warehouse development has caused a crack in her house (Paula Boardman)
She said: “Where the extension is, there’s a big crack coming down the wall. That was back in March or April and as time’s gone on, that crack has gone wider and longer and progressed quite a lot.
“The floor’s continued to progress – it’s literally a hole in the floor now and it’s dropped even more. We’ve got a lot of cracks in the extension down the walls.”
Ms Boardman added: “I was sitting here the other night and I thought, ‘I’m sure I can live with it, I’m sure it’ll get better’. It doesn’t.
“Sitting at night, you just see it – it’s taken all our natural light, It’s frustrating and upsetting. You put so much money and love into your house and after 18 years you’re left with this.”
In response, a PLP spokesperson told The Independent: “PLP is delivering the scheme strictly in accordance with the planning consent granted by Wigan Council to provide a future proofed sustainable development which will provide jobs and inward investment into the borough.
“PLP and its site delivery team values its relationship with all stakeholders and continues to manage the construction of the project to the highest standards.”
