By George Lythgoe – Local Democracy Reporter
Houses shake and residents are being kept up by lorries crashing over potholes in Mottram, according to one local.
John Sullivan says he’s not had a good night’s sleep since July, thanks to a diversion on the A57 link roads project. The scheme, also known as the Mottram bypass, has been designed to reduce congestion and improve journey times and reliability across the Pennines.
The A57 is a major connecting road between Manchester and Sheffield, which has been marred by congestion for years. The bypass was a ‘pie in the sky’ idea for more than 60 years, until spades finally went in the ground last year.
The current stage of roadworks is to allow the construction of a flyover from Hattersley roundabout to loop around Mottram village, go under Roe Cross, down to Mottram Moor and beyond towards Woolley Lane – ending at Woolley Bridge.
This progress on the scheme hasn’t made life easy for those that live nearby. John Sullivan lives just off the A57 Mottram Road in Hyde, where trans-Pennine lorries pass their homes through the night while it closes the M67 for roadworks.
The former Tameside mayor claims that household CCTV cameras recorded thousands of big wagons and cars passing their homes on a small road since May. The only reprieve they had was during the wildfires on the moors near Tintwistle prevented HGV traffic coming through altogether.
He said the best night’s sleep he’s had is four hours at most. He claims 461 HGVs and 3,020 cars from Monday, October 5, to Tuesday, October 6, including seven lorries in five minutes at 1.30am and fourteen in eleven minutes at 4am.
The 75-year-old says residents want National Highways to sign HGVs via the M62 and M60 on closure nights, the route it uses whenever the Woodhead Pass is shut. This was the case around five weeks during this summer’s wildfires. National Highways have refused this idea.
John said: “We’ve lived here since 1987. Until this summer, night was when we rested. Now the house shakes, the bed shakes, and we lie awake listening to lorries hit the potholes outside at two and three in the morning.
“My wife and I both require medical support in order to snatch a few hours of sleep, and even that can’t get us through it. This impacts adversely on our physical and mental health.
“The humane answer is staring them in the face. When the Woodhead Pass shuts, National Highways sends these lorries along the M62 and M60, and our road goes quiet. All we’re asking is that they do on closure nights what they already do on Woodhead nights. Instead we get lip-service sympathy, caveats and a promise of speed signs that never arrived.
“At the site visit in August, Tameside’s head of engineering was shown a lorry speeding past our homes and said, ‘yes, but not by much’. That sums up how residents have been treated.
“It is the whole community that is suffering. People on all the little roads off Mottram Road are telling me they are getting no sleep.
“It’s torture. This is sleep deprivation. That is a recognised torture method.
“I am not saying they have that in mind, but it is happening.”
John went on to say a roadside sign announced 15 weeks of closures and apologised to drivers. But he claims residents were told nothing.
The closures were later extended to the end of December, and are now targeted to finish in mid-November. John says he takes that estimate ‘with a pinch of salt’.
John also feels Mottram Road itself is not suitable for the size of vehicles coming down it in droves.
“I worry about road safety,” he added. “There are no exits for Mottram Road.
“If a car breaks down there would be no way out. So there is no way, in a medical emergency, an ambulance could get through.”
Karen Cliffe, National Highways programme manager, said: “We understand the impact roadworks can have. We’ve met with Mr and Mrs Sullivan to explain our approach and continue to have an open dialogue.
“We carefully planned this work to minimise disruption and, in partnership with Tameside council, determined that the A57 is an appropriate diversion route above other local routes because it accepts all forms of motorway traffic, including HGVs.”
Tameside council agreed to the route diversion, much to John’s annoyance. He lodged a complaint about this acceptance with the local authority where he once served as a representative.
A Tameside Council spokesperson added: “We appreciate the disturbance that increased traffic levels, particularly HGV movements, may be causing to residents along the diversion route. Mottram Road (A57) is a classified road (A road) that forms part of the borough’s strategic route network.
“Classified roads are designed to convey the majority of traffic through the borough and as such we are obliged to agree to the diversion but we’re liaising with the Highways Agency to look at how they can mitigate the impact on local residents wherever reasonably practicable”.
Once completed the A57 link roads project will have constructed two new link roads. One is Mottram Moor link road – a new dual carriageway from the M67 junction 4 roundabout to a new junction on the A57 at Mottram Moor.
The other is the A57 link road – a new single carriageway link from the A57 at Mottram Moor to a new junction on the A57 in Woolley Bridge.
The £228m scheme is estimated to be up and running by the end of 2028.