A GARDEN centre — earmarked as the site for a massive sports and leisure development — has gone into receivership.

The gates are locked at the Hollands Garden Centre in Darwen Road in Bromley Cross.

It has emerged that bosses from the centre had arranged to meet with Bolton Council regarding a complaint it received about ongoing work at the site — but when council officers attended they found it shut.

In September last year Bromley Cross Developments announced proposals to create a sports and leisure village on the Hollands site — including plans for a range of all-weather pitches and a gym as well as an Aldi supermarket and restaurant.

Bolton Council is still yet to receive an official application but the developers are expected to submit the plans soon.

Residents have reported seeing trucks filled with material travelling to and from the site as well as claiming to see diggers operating on the land in recent months — but this activity was believed to be in line with existing permission for the creation of eight football pitches on greenbelt land behind the nursery, granted in 2007.

However, a Bromley Cross resident, who did not want to be named, claimed that the apparent land levelling work was in fact contravening that permission, so alerted the council.

He said: “I believed the work was raising the land level and I don’t think that was in the permission.”

A spokesman for the authority said: “We received a complaint about the land levels differing from the approved plans.

“We wrote to Hollands Nurseries and arranged to meet them to investigate the matter. However, we found on the day of the meeting that Hollands Nurseries had gone into receivership.

“We are now speaking to the receivers regarding the land levels.”

Bromley Cross Cllr Norman Critchley said local people are becoming increasingly concerned about what is happening with the site.

He said: “We don’t know what the news of Hollands’ receivership means for the proposals.

“We are still yet to hear anything about the progress of the proposals and people are becoming very worried.”

No one from Hollands was available for comment.