End of an era

Doomed . . . the famous Mumps Bridge will vanish

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Historic bridge to make way for trams

OLDHAM’S iconic Mumps Bridge will be knocked down to encourage more visitors to Oldham town centre when Metrolink arrives.

Trams will run every six minutes across Mumps Roundabout and along Union Street from 2014 as part of an £84million package which will change the town centre landscape forever.

A Metrolink and bus station and a Park and Ride facility will be built — possibly at the old B&Q site — in a bid to attract more people into the town centre.

There will be further Metrolink stops on Union Street, King Street, Manchester Street and in Westwood before trams rejoin the loop line in Werneth. It is thought that trams will run over the Manchester Road roundabout instead of through an underground tunnel with additional lanes created to ease congestion.

The Oldham Way bypass will be connected to both Union Street and the Southlink Business Park with brand new slip roads to boost trade and encourage more visitors to these areas.

Council leader Howard Sykes said: “This is very positive news because the earlier plans for Metrolink 3a (existing rail) and 3b (town centre extension) never included a gateway transport facility like this.

“The current Mumps station and infrastructure was wholly inadequate for a 21st century transport network and the new interchange will benefit everyone using trams, buses and cars alike.

“The additional beauty of this scheme is that it also has the potential to help us unlock some of the problems that have held back plans to regenerate Mumps in recent years.

“This will now finally allow us to redraw an area that has become flawed for the arrival of the tram and beyond.

“We can redesign the link from Mumps to Huddersfield Road with better traffic flow, for example, and also revamp Oldham Way with better exits into the town centre and to Southlink which is already a successful, but isolated, commercial area.” Oldham’s Loop Line was closed in October to allow the train tracks to be converted for Metrolink with trams due to start running next year (3a).

But the section of track from Freehold to Mumps will shut for good when the town centre line (3b) opens in 2014.

The Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive dashed hopes of running Metrolink on both the 3a and 3b routes saying it would result in irregular tram timings and would have a knock on effect across the network.

Councillor Sykes added: “It is admittedly regrettable that a one and a half mile stretch of 3a will not be running an express route as we had originally hoped.

“GMPTE were emphatically clear to us that it was logistically impossible to keep trams running concurrently on both lines.

“Once 3b is operational through Oldham town centre, that stretch of 3a will be decommissioned but we have been assured that the associated costs will be kept to a minimum and that — wherever possible — all equipment or materials that become redundant will be reused on the network or recycled.”


THE iconic landmark railway bridge in Mumps with its various advertising slogans has welcomed visitors to Oldham for nearly 150 years. If you have any favourite memories of the bridge, we would love to read them at: news@oldham-chronicle.co.uk