Roads in Oldham to be improved as part of £12m investment

Pot holes

These are the cracked and crumbling roads in Oldham that will be repaired this year as part of a £12m investment. 

The borough’s cabinet have this week signed off on plans to repair more than 170 roads across the borough by the end of the 2021/2022 financial year.

The plan is to fix the main roads first, but then also turn attention to the pot-holed smaller highways that residents have been complaining about.
It comes after the town hall had previously agreed to change the way the road repairs programme was drawn up, to allow for local councillors to to be more involved and suggest where repairs should be carried out.

Cabinet member for neighbourhood services, Councillor Arooj Shah said: “For many years we’ve focused on our investment on primary routes and members of the public always contact us and say ‘well actually, this is a route in my ward or near where I live and it doesn’t get a look in’.

“So this new investment I really welcome because it focuses on local members’ involvement and they have had consultation with residents in their ward.
“This about us expressing our absolute desire to get the basics right in ensuring that the roads that they use are safe.”

This year, the most expensive road to fix is Holmfirth Road in Saddleworth, with resurfacing and patching to cost £375,544.
Also in Saddleworth, fixing Ripponden Road, from Dumfries Avenue to the boundary will cost £263,375.
And £800,000 has been put aside to be used for pothole repairs during the three years.

Council leader Sean Fielding added that he deals with a ‘lot of complaints’ about the condition of the roads in Oldham.
“This was a priority of the administration to make sure that we put money into roads because this is bread and butter, that people come to councillors more often than anything else about,” he told the meeting.
“And this is about being able to respond to those concerns and we have local accountability now where we can meet and help shape the programme as elected members.

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