Huddersfield Road, Diggle
Huddersfield Road in Diggle and Oldham Road in Grasscroft and Lydgate will be the first roads in Saddleworth to benefit from Oldham Council’s efforts to improve the quality of our highways.
The council is spending £10m over the coming four years on repairs to the borough’s roads and footpaths, many of which have been left in a particularly bad state because of the long winter.
Work on those two stretches of road in Saddleworth will start on 28 March. Repairs on Dobcross New Road and Grains Road between Delph and Grains Bar will begin towards the end of April.
Cllr John McCann, who represents Saddleworth South and holds the Environment portfolio in the council’s Cabinet, used a statement to say the council is “prioritising” the road repair works.
He said: “The borough’s carriageways, like those across most parts of the country, suffered terribly due to the harsh winter with many potholes and cracks appearing. Not only that but many improvement schemes which were due to start had to be postponed because of the terrible conditions and concerns over the safety of workers and equipment.”
Cllr McCann continued: “However, winter is behind us and we can now start carrying out planned improvement work, many on busy roads which once completed will help improve access and driving conditions.”
He went on: “As these works start over the coming weeks there is bound to be some inconvenience for motorists and residents and I can only apologise for this in advance. I thank motorists in advance for their patience as the short term pain of disruption will be countered by better driving conditions in the long term.”
You can read Oldham Council’s statement in full here.
The council has a nasty habit of badging “maintenance” as “improvements” the “damage” they are repairing is the result of many years of neglect, not “one winter” this work is long overdue, we all know that. The council should be ashamed if it’s lack of civic pride and indeed duty, in the infrastructure, not trumpeting long over due work as something we as tax payees should be grateful for.
Phil
Now is not the time to be negative if as you say it has been neglect for many years then its not a case of maintenance it is more a case of rebuilding so it becomes an improvement once completed it then enters the maintenance stage, but none of this really maters the important thing is the road is put right after many years of neglect
Well done Oldham for working to get the extra money now keep up the good work you get my vote in May
Steve
I have lived in Oldham for the whole of my life. Oldham in terms of council tax is one of the most expensive areas in the country to live in. The tax I pay and the budgets the council set are there to maintain what we have paid for to be built. For the council to admit that roads in rhe borough are in their words are not “fit for purpose” is a damning indication that the council has been neglectful in it’s duty to those that pay for a service. The council should be apologising for that neglect, not expecting praise now that it has finally got round to doing something about it. There are some roads in the parish I no longer consider passable unless you own an “off road vehicle”. My gut feeling is it would cost less to regulary maintain to a high standard (something we pay for year on year in tax) than to allow to rot to the point of needing to be, in your words re-built.
Hooray!
Here’s hoping that the pristine new surfaces last longer than the one on Wellington Road in Greenfield did. What was that, three weeks between being finished and being dug up again? A poor patching job as usual means we’ll have some lovely new potholes on the way next winter.