Landmark gasometer stays put

STILL standing . . . the Hollinwood gasholder viewed from the top of Montgomery House looking towards Ashton

HOLLINWOOD’S giant gasholder will remain an imposing sight looming over the M60 despite being out of use.

National Grid has confirmed there are no plans to redevelop the Albert Road site even though the tank was decommissioned earlier this year.

While it was once part of plans to regenerate the area they never materialised and it will continue to stand at a gateway to Oldham.

The 165ft tall gasholder, which holds 144,000 cu ft of gas, was the largest in the country when it was built in 1913.

Consent was granted in November, 1992, for the storage of around 150 tonnes of natural gas but has now been revoked.

A National Grid spokesman said: “It was decommissioned earlier this year and isolated from the local gas supply network. We are not using it any more.

“It’s part of a big site at Hollinwood, which is our main office base for the North-West and one of our two big national training centres. There are no plans to either demolish the holder or develop the land. It will just remain there. If we do get approached for that bit of land we will look at it but there’s no plans to be pro-active and put it up for sale.”

The multi-million pound training centre opened last year to train a new generation of recruits to the gas industry.

The flagship National Grid skills development centre is part of a major Government drive to boost the UK’s skills base.

Covering 13,000sq ft, the two-storey building in Mersey Road North houses a pipe-laying area and deep excavation pit, with a suite of classrooms providing theory-based learning and specialist courses.

The state-of-the-art centre — one of two built at a cost of £5.5m — specialises in practical, hands-on training, recreating the real-life situations faced by National Grid’s workforce.

A council spokesman confirmed the gas holder site was not part of any regeneration plans.