Road plans that have ‘divided community’ approved despite fears it will cause ‘falling outs between neighbours’

New road safety measures in Grotton, Saddleworth, have been approved by Oldham council despite the plans splitting opinion among residents.

Double yellow lines will be extended part-way along Under Lane and Old Kiln Lane because of safety concerns that have led to several ‘near misses’ according to some locals. 

But the new measures will leave a row of terraced houses on Quick Edge Lane ‘without anywhere legal to park’, objectors who attended a Highways meeting argued. 

Councillor Alicia Marland, who helped design the plans along with highways officers, said: “It’s been a really hard decision and there were lots of upset people at the highways meeting.

"But for me, [the important thing is] it’s going to make the road safer for people that are using it on a daily basis.” 

Coun Marland explained that the road, which forms a ‘bottleneck’ between Mossley and Grotton, was described as a ‘death trap’ to her by a local resident before she decided to get involved. 

“Every day, there’s large transit vans and cars parked around,” she said.

“You physically can’t see [the traffic] until you’re halfway in the road. It’s quite heavily used by horse riders and there’s no pathway on the final stretch of the road.”

One Grotton resident commented on the plans: “I don’t know how there hasn’t been a fatal accident there yet.”

And others described using the roads as “dangerous” and “challenging”. 

The issue has reportedly been steadily worsening since it was first raised to the council in 2010, with two previous schemes dropped due to the number of objections.

This ‘reduced’ version of the plans received 12 letters of support and 20 objections from local residents. 

Several objectors raised concerns about the tension the plans ‘will create in the village’ as a result of more limited parking, with ‘a great deal of unrest and potential ‘falling outs’ between neighbours’.

Some cited previous ‘unpleasant’ incidents and suspected cases of ‘bullying’ already taking place due to the lack of parking. 

And one local parent thought the plans would be a ‘nightmare’ for the neighbourhood.

They wrote: “We personally have a young family and how you expect my partner to just walk with kids in her arms on a busy road to a parking space that will be god knows where. 

“Not only will you disrupt a community, you will cause arguments and distress to people in the surrounding area.”

Others worried the scheme was nothing more than a ‘sticking plaster’ and would simply displace the problem further down the road. 

“There’s very little we can do about that,” Coun Marland admitted.

“But we’ve got to try it and see what happens.

"If it doesn’t work and it makes matters worse around there, then we’ll review the scheme. 

“I’m asking people to consider just trying it and seeing how it goes.” 

She added that in an ideal plan, the area would have seen a 20mph limit introduced along Old Kiln Lane.

But ‘purely the cost of it’ made that impossible, as currently funding is only available for reducing speed limits on highways where there are over 0.7 casualties per km per year. 

Creating a 20mph zone costs upwards of £60k.

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