Oldham’s deep freeze
Date published: 25 March 2013
ARCTIC conditions battered the borough yet again over the weekend as snow and gale-force winds created some of Oldham’s worst snow drifts for 10 years.
Villages were cut off due to the extreme conditions, with a mass of abandoned vehicles scattered across the icy tops.
Moorside and parts of Saddleworth were worst affected by the unseasonable weather which closed roads and brought chaos to much of the borough.
Temperatures plummeted as low as -4C and wind speeds reached more than 50mph over the weekend.
The council’s gritting team set to work on Friday afternoon to help keep major routes clear, but the severe conditions fought back fiercely, causing a spate of road closures.
The A635 Holmfirth Road was closed in both directions for most of the weekend, and is still impassable between the Woodhead Road junction and Chew Valley Road.
The Denshaw cross roads came to a standstill, as adjoining roads the A627 Ripponden Road and A640 Huddersfield Road were closed both ways. Parts of the roads are still not clear.
However, the gritting team were triumphant in keeping major access road the A62 Huddersfield Road open after a major team effort.
Bus services were badly affected, with the 81 avoiding Derker, the 83 omitting top Sholver, and the 184 unable to operate past Uppermill. Metrolink services were unaffected.
It was thought the snowy conditions had claimed a victim in Moorside on Saturday night, as a team of police and Oldham Mountain Rescue (OMRT) raced to the scene to reports that a walker had plummeted into a 8ft high snow drift.
They were alerted to the potential disaster when a resident called to say she had seen a walker on top of the high snow drifts, but had seen them fall over and not get back up.
After a lengthy search the rescue squad were satisfied that nobody had been stuck, and that, thankfully, it had been a false alarm. A team of 17 members were at the incident for 90 minutes.
Mick Nield, Team Leader at Oldham Mountain Rescue Team, said: “There are a sizeable number of snow drifts on Haven Lane, some reaching almost 8ft high. We had a report that one of the local residents had seen someone walking across the drifts but that they didn’t make it to the other side.
Oldham’s head of highways Craig Dale said: “The winds have been unrelenting. The snows themselves were severe but driven by the howling winds the situation quickly became treacherous.
“My teams worked like Trojans in two 16-hour shifts on Sunday – they were brilliant. Quite a few lanes need blowing out but we have been hampered by the strong winds.
“Gritters, cutters and blowers are all out – where possible we have reverted to full coverage of primary gritting routes although areas exposed to the easterly winds had been particular badly effected.”
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