Driver madness just snowballs

Photo: Ken Bennett

Oldham's head of highways Craig Dale (right) pictured with colleague Stephen Aikman at the man-made snow wall on the A635 Greenfield-Holmfirth road.

A furious highways chief has slammed mad-cap drivers who broke through a protective man-made wall of snow on a notorious moorland road.

The wall — originally 12ft high — was built across the A635 Greenfield-Holmfirth road in a bid to stop drivers putting themselves and rescue teams at risk in the blizzard conditions which have seen the road closed since the weekend.

But rogue drivers have smashed through the wall on the Saddleworth-Yorkshire border.

Craig Dale, the council’s head of highways, took the decision after seeing first-hand drivers stranded at the scene.

His team was alerted to the fresh problems by the neighbouring Kirklees authority which decided to clear the road of snow up to the Saddleworth border.

And Oldham has removed its snow wall with the road opening to traffic from yesterday for the first time since last weekend.

Mr Dale said: “We revisited the scene and discovered drivers had simply ploughed and bashed thorough the wall we built.

“In fact, while we were at the scene, we had to pulll out a 4x4 which had tried to breach the wall and got stuck. It’s complete madness.

“Some of these drivers could have been killed. They just don’t realise just how severe the weather is on this road.

“Unless they are wearing the right gear they could freeze in a few minutes.”

The council had closed and locked a metal snow gate on the outskirts of Greenfield which warns the road ahead is closed.

However, because of emergencies, the gate only closes off part of the roadway.

Consequently, thoughtless drivers are ignoring the warning signs and head on only to discover the road — which rises to 1,500-feet — is blocked more than a mile ahead.

Problems are exacerbated because there is limited mobile network coverage on the moor.

In the last bout of snow a couple of weeks ago, Oldham Mountain Rescue Team rescued more than 20 drivers and their passengers, some who had been stranded for more than four hours.