Light at the end of the tunnel

Photo: DARREN ROBINSON

PEOPLE walking under the subway’s broken lights.

CAMPAIGNERS have won a battle for better lighting in a subway in which a woman was mugged.

Six out of ten of the lights in the subway don’t work. A 20-year-old woman was punched and robbed in the Park Estate subway on Broadway, Chadderton, in July.

The lights weren’t due to be replaced until 2015 or 2016 but the Highways Agency has now agreed to bring the work forward.

Jean Friend (62) of Park Way started a Facebook campaign after calling for improvements to the subway in 2009. She has written to both local MP Michael Meacher and the secretary of state for transport demanding action.

She said: “There’s graffiti, there’s virtually no lighting and it’s basically used as a urinal — you wouldn’t want to walk through it. The mugging was the final straw.

“People do not want to use the subway. They run across the road instead and it is a miracle no one has been hit.”

Councillor Barbara Brownridge, who has taken up residents’ concerns, said next year is too long to wait for new lighting: “The Highways Agency has now agreed that it needs to be replaced. It really is so dangerous.”