£22m aid to hold up crumbling road walls

Oldham has been granted the lion’s share of a £45 million bid for road repairs to continue essential work on retaining walls.

Oldham, Rochdale, Tameside and Stockport councils will get up to £45 million for local roads, on top of £254 million already allocated across the North-West to 2011.

The Government says Oldham will get £22.21 million for work on retaining walls.

Local repair schemes for crumbling roadsides particularly in Saddleworth and other hillside locations have become a blue print for Britain.

In 2002, council highway engineers developed a new repair strategy and spent £14million on retaining walls.

Key people from the National Bridges Board made a special visit to Oldham in 2004 to learn more from them.

And in 2005, roads minister Tony McNulty visited Dovestone, to see how 13 miles of dry stone retaining walls were being replaced.

Councillor Mark Alcock, cabinet member for environment and infrastructure, said: “We welcome the recent announcement.

“Oldham’s share was by the far the largest within that. We bid for around £20 million to repair retaining walls across Oldham borough which are becoming a big issue in many areas and will represent increasing danger without this work.

“We will issue a further statement once we have received final confirmation of our allocation from Government.

“What is certain, however, is that without that funding there is simply no way that our borough could find the money to carry out the essential list of 43 works we submitted to the Department for Transport.

“The scheme requires a commitment from Oldham Council of 10 per cent of the total project cost.”