Council scraps Heywood relief road plans

Plans to build a link road to cut down on the number of lorries driving through Heywood town centre have been scrapped.

The plug has been pulled on the proposed £8.5 million road after the government asked Rochdale Council to assess and re-draft their Core Strategy plan; a major council planning document of which it was a part.

The relief road would have linked junction 19 of the M62 to Harehill Road as a means of reducing the number of heavy goods vehicles and easing traffic congestion through Heywood town centre.

Under the original plans, Rochdale Council were controversially looking to expand Heywood Business Park; building hundreds of residential properties on green belt land south of Pilsworth Road. In return, developers would have funded the new link road.

However, government planning inspectors did not feel it viable to build on green belt land.

Peter Rowlinson, Head of Planning and Regulation at Rochdale Borough Council, said: “The proposal for the link road has been withdrawn and replaced by a policy which will review transport improvement options in the centre and south of Heywood.”