What is really happening at the former soap star’s home in Heywood

The former home of a Coronation Street legend has become the epicentre of a planning furore in Heywood.

Soap star Julie Goodyear, who played landlady Bet Lynch on Corrie for decades, no longer lives at the £1.5m mansion after selling up in recent years. But Primrose Hill Farm has been set upon by protesters who are falsely claiming there are plans to turn it into a house of multiple occupation (HMO) for immigrants. 

Rochdale council has confirmed no official plans have been tabled to create a HMO at the Rochdale Road East site.

Following protesters waving St George’s flags and Union Jacks outside of the soap star’s old house in recent weeks there has been a wave of national media coverage. A plethora of misinformation and disinformation has also been spread across social media about the potential use of the site. 

In response, the Local Democracy Reporting Service has fact-checked what exactly is happening at the site. 

Officially, the last request for planning permission on Primrose Hill Farm was made by Julie Goodyear herself back in 2006 to fill in an all-weather exercise arena, which was refused. However, there was an attempted application made in recent months to build 10 two-bedroom apartments and to convert the stables into a three-bedroom house. 

Rochdale council confirmed the application was not valid due to a lack of detail – so it was never published on the council’s planning portal.

The confusion over the plans is because the application came through building control, rather than the planning permission section. Building control applications look at how the development is constructed; whereas planning permission outlines what is being built.

Even if this application was approved, the developer would still need planning permission before any building work could start.

Back in October 2025, a building control application for a 15-bed HMO was submitted to the council. That application was amended on November 10, 2025 to become a 15-bedroom bed and breakfast.

Building control plans were amended again on February 11 to the creation of 10, two-bedroom apartments and stable conversion into a three-bedroom house. No decision has been made on this application by the council. 

Despite no permission for any form of building work being granted, work did start on the former home of the Corrie icon. The local authority issued a temporary stop notice (TSN) on February 20, after being alerted to the start of construction work by local councillors.

Local ward councillor, Paul O’Neill, said: “We just have to stop this disinformation about this site and other sites. There is no planning permission for this property and building work has been stopped following concerns raised by residents and councillors.

“Residents quite rightly were concerned about it and now planning enforcement action has taken action.”

Activists from the Heywood Community Guard and Heywood HMO protesters Facebook groups have vowed to continue protesting each weekend until they get confirmation there will be no HMO on the site. Posts in these groups have falsely claimed there are plans to use this site to house immigrants.

There has been no mention of immigrants being housed at the site included in plans publicly available on the council website.

A spokesperson for Rochdale council said: “The individual concerned did submit a planning application to us some weeks ago, but this application was for nine dwellings, not an HMO.

“This application wasn’t valid, so is not listed on our website, as would be the case with any invalid application. An invalid application is one where the applicant hasn’t submitted enough information to enable officers to make a recommendation on whether the application should be approved or not.

“Regarding the reported building on site without planning permission, the temporary stop notice remains in place and our enforcement team are making regular visits to the site and speaking to residents in neighbouring properties to ensure that the individual concerned is complying with this temporary stop notice.”