Oldham council to spend £6.2m on road improvements

Pot hole

Oldham Council is spending £6.2m upgrading the borough’s roads as part of the Highways Improvement Programme 2018.

This 12-month programme of works aims to ensure the surfaces of our streets, roads and cul-de-sacs are high quality, durable and safe - supporting residents and motorists.

Recent harsh winters and wet summers have taken a toll on local roads. Road surfaces across the borough have been left damaged and in need of repair and resurfacing work.

Specialist teams are now out across Oldham making sure hundreds of kilometres of carriageway are fit for the purpose and brought up to standard.

Councillor Fida Hussain, Cabinet Member for Environmental Services, said: “Our borough is more vulnerable than most to the challenges that are being experienced across the country, with more traffic and harsher weather leading to more potholes and damaged highways.

“As a council it is our duty to provide good quality roads for residents and motorists to help improve access and driving conditions.

“Despite the unprecedented ongoing cuts to our funding and well-known financial challenges we recognise it is vital to continue to invest in our key infrastructure wherever possible.

“It is never easy to find the money needed to do this but we are investing an additional £6.2 million in making your roads better this year.

“We are already on site working on some of these schemes so people should start to see the benefits and improvements from this pretty quickly.

“As always with infrastructure works, this may mean some temporary inconvenience in terms of traffic disruption, but we will be monitoring this closely to ensure that we keep this to an absolute minimum.

“That short term pain will be offset by better driving conditions across the borough as we tackle this backlog and I would like to thank local people in advance for their patience.

“We are doing our bit by investing this £6.2 million but we also need your help. These repairs are in addition to our regular working to fix potholes and other defects which we rely on people doing your bit and reporting to us.

“Together we can deliver better roads that continue to make Oldham a more attractive place to live, work and invest.”

Once the individual schemes have been completed, the Council will be contacting residents asking them for their feedback on the work and to help improve work in the future.

This £6.2m is on top of the work the council’s highways team undertakes on a regular basis, such as fixing potholes.

The council operates a 24-hour repair promise on priority routes in, around, and out of the borough are fully repaired and refurbished, and kept in a good state of repair.

By reporting defects to these routes you can help the council take the appropriate action, whether it be fixing potholes or resurfacing, within 24 hours.