Transport & Streets

The Council is the Highway Authority for the Oldham borough area.

Highways include publicly-adopted roads and footpaths. Within the Oldham Borough, the management of the motorways (i.e. M60, M62 and A627M) and the Trunk Road (i.e. Broadway - A663 - between the A627M junction and the Manchester City boundary) is undertaken by W S Atkins Consultants Ltd who work in partnership with Amey Mouchel who carry out all the maintenance/repair work and winter gritting. For enquiries and queries regarding these motorways and the trunk road, please telephone 01925 282001 or e-mail area10@atkinsglobal.com.

All other adopted roads within the borough are maintained by the Highways Maintenance and Street Lighting Section of the Environmental Services Directorate of Oldham Council for the benefit of residents, businesses and visitors.

The council is responsible for carrying out repairs and for administering highway legislation via the Highways Act 1980 and the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 (NRSWA). This includes:

Planned maintenance: resurfacing and renewal of road markings
Reactive maintenance: dealing with minor defects including potholes, street furniture or other dangerous defects
Highway drainage: clearing blocked highway gullies and drainage channels
Obstructions: enforcement of highway legislation contained in the Highways Act 1980
Licensing: granting of permissions for use of areas of highway (e.g. scaffolding, hoardings, road opening permits, events on the highway)
Surveys: carrying out of visual and machine condition surveys of the highway network
Street works: liaison with various utilities organisations (e.g. gas, electricity, water, telecomms) or other authorised bodies carrying out work within the highway. Enforcement under NRSWA

Unadopted Roads

Please note that Oldham Council does not have a duty to maintain or repair an unadopted road. It is not a “highway maintainable at public expense”.

Usually the owners of properties or land, fronting unadopted roads, known as the Street Managers, also own the road up to the centre line and have a responsibility for maintaining it in a satisfactory condition, e.g. the filling of potholes.

If this is not done, then the Council, acting as the Highway Authority can serve a Notice, instructing the owners to carry out the work. If they do not comply, then the Council will do the necessary work and recharge the cost to the owners. The Council can only adopt roads, footways and footpaths, when they have been constructed to a specified standard

Who to contact

To make a request for a road or footway to be considered for re-surfacing, please telephone 0161 770 4374 or e-mail highways@oldham.gov.uk
To report a problem with road markings, please telephone 0161 770 4325 or e-mail highways@oldham.gov.uk
To request repairs to footways (pavements), minor carriageway repairs, e.g. patching and potholes, cleaning and repairs to street furniture please telephone 0161 770 4325 or e-mail highways@oldham.gov.uk
To report blocked gullies or missing/broken grids, telephone 0161 770 4325 or e-mail highways@oldham.gov.uk
To report an incident of glass or debris on the road please telephone 'Contact Oldham' on 0161 770 6644 or e-mail contact@oldham.gov.uk
To report a problem with over-hanging hedges and trees or an emergency incident such as a fallen tree or branches across the road or footway, at any time (24 hours), please telephone 0161 770 4580 or e-mail highways@oldham.gov.uk
For information about Winter Maintenance please telephone 0161 770 4421 / 4423 or e-mail gritting@oldham.gov.uk
To apply for licences for scaffolding and hoardings etc please telephone 0161 770 4363 or e-mail traffic@oldham.gov.uk
For information about temporary roadworks that may cause delays to traffic in Oldham Borough and in particular the following districts i.e. Chadderton, Royton, Shaw and Crompton, Saddleworth, Lees and Failsworth, please telephone. 0161 770 4363 or e-mail traffic@oldham.gov.uk
For advice and information about unadopted roads, please e-mail highways@oldham.gov.uk

You can also write to:-

The Group Manager - Highways Maintenance
Environmental Services Directorate
Lees Road Depot
Hamilton Street
Oldham
OL4 1DA