BUILDING work on a controversial bypass which has already cost a staggering £16m will now not begin before 2016.
The 3.5 mile route - which is expected to cost £315m in total and will bypass Mottram, Tintwistle and Hollingworth on the edge of Tameside - has become a victim of the credit crunch.
Regional leaders have decided to postpone the troubled scheme, to divert traffic away from the A628, after reviewing their transport strategy.
The review came in the light of Greater Manchester's doomed bid for up to £3bn from the government's Transport Innovation Fund (TIF), which was scrapped after congestion charge plans were rejected in a public vote.
The announcement has been welcomed by opponents of the bypass, who want to protect the Swallow's Wood nature reserve, which is in the route of the planned road. But supporters of the scheme are furious.
Lord Peter Smith, leader of the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities, said: "Greater Manchester is reviewing its transport priorities, in part because of the TIF result, but also because in 2006 there was no downturn.
Setback
"A submission to government in 2009 needs to reflect 2009's priorities.
"We think the DfT should give anyone who wants it a chance to reprioritise."
And Emma Lawrence, from Save Swallow's Wood, said she hoped the latest setback would lead to the scheme being scrapped altogether.
"Of all the schemes being proposed, Mottram-Tintwistle was the most expensive and the most environmentally damaging," she said."What we need is an integrated transport solution, not a damaging and expensive road scheme. The next step is for local politicians to accept that the bypass is never going to happen and to turn their attention to low-cost low-carbon solutions that will benefit local people and the environment and be deliverable in the short term."
Ms Lawrence's group is calling for a lorry ban across the Peak District national park, which she said would bring immediate relief to the villages for a fraction of the cost.
But Mike Flynn, from Mottram and Longdendale Under Siege, said: "All the government officials who have been here and seen the traffic say we need a bypass and now they have reneged on that. We are very upset."
Residents of Mottram, Tintwistle and Hollingworth have called for a bypass since the 1970s to stop thousands of vehicles using roads through their villages.
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Bean of the yard, stalybridge (28/02/2009 at 07:11)
PW, Manchester (28/02/2009 at 07:46)
neil sk6 (28/02/2009 at 08:03)
Also there will always be a [Emma Lawrence, from Save Swallow's Wood] bringing along the green vote any new road will bring a bit of damage to the environment but you have to think of the local community their lives are being driven through hell. I bet Emma does not live anywhere near the proposed new road.
neil sk6 (28/02/2009 at 08:32)
100% agree with you there.
daniel (28/02/2009 at 10:10)
Errrr...... Actually no. Those affluent Cheshire villages are surrounded by flat farmland which is relativly easy to construct roads on. This road involves cuttings, viaducts, water course diversion and generally large scale civil engineering seen in more 'Alpine' regions of Europe. The scheme also cuts through woodland, nature reserves, SSSI's and quite shockingly ......... a National Park! On a progressive note, a HGV ban and a enforced 40mph limit along with traffic lights at the few junctions there is on the way over the 'tops' should deal with speeding motorists using a route through a National Park as a short cut.
PW, Manchester (28/02/2009 at 13:39)
Black Flag (28/02/2009 at 13:58)
hjk (28/02/2009 at 21:59)
J.Hall, Tameside (01/03/2009 at 13:14)
1.The Highways Agency in February 2007 submitted its evidence for the ByPass.
2.Then 5 Public Inquiry Adjournments had to be granted for the Agency to get its seriously flawed evidence corrected.
between June 2007 and December 2007. which they failed.
3,By December 2007 it was totally incapable of correcting its evidence to substantiate its claims for a ByPass
4. In December 2008 the Public Inquiry Inspector releaserd a document stating his conditions to re-start the Public Inquiry
but since then no responses were forthcoming from the Dept of Transport/Highways Agency by March 2009
5 In 2007 the Road was due to cost £90 million but then because of gross negligence by the DfT/HA the costs
became £315 Million plus at least £25 million for evidence documents which became "waste paper".
6.But lets have the full facts out in the open which were being disguised,and behind the scenes located and
exposed,the ByPass was not intended for the benefits pretence of Tintwistle,Hollingworth,Mottram,etc,but the road was to create the M62Mk11 major route from Europe,Humberside Ports,Yorkshire,down the intended ByPass and M67 to the M60 Junction 24 where already 23 lanes of traffic converge,but you never saw pictures of that grid lock area did you,just the same organised photo`s to swing the support of Mottram Moor an open rural location with some slow moving traffic at peak periods like the rest of the UK.
This was a deceptive scheme found out with hundreds of documented,substantiated and conclusive evidence of this huge scam,especially on the residents of Longendale.
So regardless of politicians knowing, it wanted the ByPass to further swamp Manchester main routes to the Airport/M6.M5/M56 etc etc from Humberside Ports,with an alternative to the M62,which would have ripped Longendale in the Peak Park to shreds,but they could not defend their found out objectives to destroy a rural region for thousands of extra daily vehicles.
So if the put a ban on HGV`s through Longendale (pure common sense) would have exposed their story and the evidence supplied by the Dept of Transport/Highways Agency,so lets have the ban and fineally expose this farcical scam.
which could never be substantiated and see the benefits to the 3 villages they kept quoting as simply a red-herring..
These are 100% facts which would have come out to expose the truth,so was the "credit crunch " impact the reason,I think not.
Kev9, Mottram (01/03/2009 at 18:57)
I live at Mottram (I notice you don't) and I don't want the bypass.
I also know a lot of locals and especially the traders don't want it. The so-called demand for the bypass has been a presumption based on a long out-of-date petition supported by Tameside Council and its elderly leader who has occasionally made the district a laughing-stock nationally. (check the MeN archive).
The road would actually have increased traffic on most of the main routes in the area, with the supposed decrease being marginal. (Check the websites, try wiki even if you are short of local knowledge). The road would also have destroyed precious natural resources of treasured nature spots and views we should be preserving for our grand-children.
I've been using the Woodhead pass for years - and both visit and shop in the villages - and even now the traffic isn't too bad at all. There are much worse bottlenecks elsewhere in the North West.
The far better solution would be an HGV-ban - but that doesn't create more jobs for the boys in local and central government with their desire to waste many millions of pounds of our money on consultants and the like.
neil sk6 (01/03/2009 at 19:34)
Somthing has to be done not in 7 years but NOW.
Voice of Sanity (02/03/2009 at 02:19)
Jay B, oldham (02/03/2009 at 09:40)
petty arent they! in the current downturn this sort of project is needed to keep the construction industry going!
Black Flag (02/03/2009 at 10:47)
The only reason to fund any project at any time is if it delivers good value for money, otherwise you're in the realms of the broken window fallacy. I don't see this project delivering much in the way of value, so it should be scrapped.
Albert Bino (02/03/2009 at 13:00)
Tidders, Rochdale - VOTE NO to the Con Charge (02/03/2009 at 13:48)
Jay B, oldham (02/03/2009 at 15:53)
if its not going to provide value for money then why has £16m already been spent?
that would be much more of a waste! hmmm like trying to con us into voting yes! that was a real waste!
Black Flag (02/03/2009 at 16:09)
Yes I have, but I don't see a bypass (unless it's built as a toll road) delivering a significant return.
For a start, traffic levels are falling, so it would be serving a declining market (isn't it funny how a lot of the people who used that fact to oppose the congestion charge don't mention it quite as often when there is a prospect of road building).
The bypass would probably go some way to reduce the downward trend by drawing more traffic into the area, by encouraging more cross-pennine journeys, discouraging public transport use, opening up the area to further development and drawing traffic from other routhes.
The people on the route being bypassed might see a reduction in traffic, but the people at the ends of the bypass would see an increase in traffic, so instead of solving a problem, it would just be moving it.
"if its not going to provide value for money then why has £16m already been spent?"
Well, if the government's spent £16m it must be good value for money! After all, they never waste money, do they?
"hmmm like trying to con us into voting yes! that was a real waste!"
And you even admit it yourself.
Longdendale Lad, Hollingworth (03/03/2009 at 17:13)
J.Hall, Tameside (03/03/2009 at 20:07)
If you want to observe "real chronic air pollution" get a bus to Sainsbury`s in Denton and stand on the
bridge over the M67/M60/A57 large interchange where you will observe 23 lanes of converging traffic,mainly stop started,with 260,000 daily traffic volumes with nearest homes as close as 50 metres.And guess what son,a Bypass would create even greater volumes of HGV`s etc fromYorkshire straight through to the M60 Junction 24.
I keep repeating this absolute facts laddie but the penny won`t drop will it.?????
chriskaraokeman, Ashton (04/03/2009 at 11:31)
J.Hall, Tameside (05/03/2009 at 09:49)