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Bumpy ride means buses will quit estate

Dale Haslam
15/ 3/2005

AN ESTATE will lose its bus service if Rochdale Council presses ahead with plans to introduce road humps.

The council is due to install speed humps on 60 Deeplish streets this summer to cut the number of accidents.

But Bu-val bus managing director Martin Bull said he would almost certainly withdraw the 437 service for good when work begins because of passenger health concerns.

He said he was worried passengers and drivers would suffer because the buses would travel over humps more than 2,500 times a week.

At a meeting on Wednesday, Rochdale Township committee decided to allow the £230,000 traffic-calming project to go ahead.

The original project involved putting speed humps, one-way systems and narrow lanes on 60 streets inside the boundary created by Manchester Road to the east, Oldham Road to the west, Tweedale Street to the north and the Rochdale Canal to the south.

Most of the plan will stay the same, but in a bid to save the 437 service, councillors agreed to replace 10 planned hard-topped speed humps with 'speed cushions' - humps with less impact.

But Mr Bull said he was still anxious about the health and safety implications.

After the meeting, he said: "I appreciate the councillors were trying to make concessions to resolve the situation but, as I said at the meeting, it doesn't change very much.

"We will have to withdraw the service when the work begins in the summer, anyway, because the route will become impassable and I would say that it is almost certain we will not be putting the service back on the route when the work has been done.

"At the moment, the route makes £10 a day. With the new humps, it would make 40p a day and this is before overheads, so we would be losing money.

"But this is not a financial matter, it is to do with health."

He said the service contract was due to expire next year and if Bu-Val was to withdraw the 437 before then, it would first need to explain the health and safety argument to the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive.

Meanwhile, Rochdale Township committee agreed to reposition planned speed humps from one section of Boundary Street to another after residents raised objections with Councillor Mohammed Sharif.

But the committee said a speed hump planned for Stratford Avenue must still be introduced, despite a complained from one resident.