Our Tinseltown!
Reporter: Janice Barker
Date published: 13 August 2009
Businessman Frank Rothwell says it’s Hooray for Hollinwood after being unmasked as the man behind the M60 sign.
Drivers smiled as they passed the sign spoofing the Hollywood white letters on Sunday and Monday — before the Highways Agency stepped in and removed it.
Agency staff said it was dangerous and a distraction and threatened to prosecute anyone who trespassed on the embankment.
But Frank, owner of Another Level car parks by the M60 Junction 22 in Hollinwood, said: “I’ve no regrets. That would be a good court case.
“When Manchester twinned with Los Angeles, I decided Oldham should be twinned with Hollywood.
“The sign should be a permanent fixture in concrete. If Oldham Council got involved, they would form a committee, get consultants in, then get a tender, then have a competition because they have got no money, and it would all take two years.
“We researched it and found the H is a different size and the letters are at different angles in Hollywood.
“We did a risk assessment. There was no danger to anyone. We didn’t go within 30 metres of the motorway, and there was an embankment and a crash barrier.”
Frank said the 60ft x 8ft plywood sign was made by his joiner, costing about £700 then put up on Sunday between 5pm and 6pm.
He added: “We wore high-vis jackets and used sledgehammers and an electric screwdriver. The hardest part was carrying it 200 metres. I’m annoyed that they’ve taken it down.
“Oldham is a town of 220,000 people and there is nothing to tell the world even that ‘Oldham welcomes careful drivers’.
“A million people come through Oldham on the motorway but none knows where Oldham is or what we do or what we stand for.
“There is more information approaching a motorway services which says Costa Coffee or M&S.”
The Highways Agency removed the sign on Tuesday, and said it was illegal to trespass on a motorway including the embankment.
Local resident Janet Gipson praised the man responsible for the sign at last night’s Hollinwood PACT. She said: “We need a sign in Hollinwood. There’s one for Failsworth so why can’t we have one?”
